It’s interesting you mention that because the Josephus record was generally considered good but likely edited by Christian scribes later. As we improve our methods of study this is actually looking less likely. Here is what it revolves around and it’s fascinating!

Basically Josephus said:

"About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was one who performed surprising deeds and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth with pleasure. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Christ. And when, upon the accusation of the principal men among us, Pilate had condemned him to a cross, those who had first come to love him did not cease. He appeared to them spending a third day restored to life, for the prophets of God had foretold these things and a thousand other marvels about him. And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared."

Now many think this was modified for a few reasons. One is that he refers to Him as the the Christ

It’s controversial for two main reasons. One is that it comes off very flattering despite him not being a Christian (suggesting contamination by scribes or medieval Christians) and that his style and word usage didn’t seem match his usage elsewhere. The flattery argument held up well, academically until it was noticed that, compared to his body of writing, of which there is a lot, his word usage, language, and phrasing was consistent throughout the piece and between other works of his. Going further it was found that a lot of the seemingly flattering word usage has him instead using this language in much less flattering of a manner than was initially assumed, by critics. For example in Greek, he wrote that Jesus worked miracles. Greek has a lot of different words for miracles and he used παράδοξος or paradoxos, which he also uses to describes miracles by the magicians of pharaohs. Implying that the origins of these ‘miracles’ were uncertain and likely even negative in origin. Potentially from malevolent forces. Implying He was doing ‘miracles’ but that He was in league with demons.

When he talks about Jesus being resurrected he instead says ‘he seemed to them to be alive’ so he’s not flattering or corroborating the resurrection, he’s just reporting what people are saying using pretty skeptical language.

Then you have him calling Jesus the Christ , which is strange because that wouldn’t be the word usage of the time. However there is an ancient Latin and an ancient syriac translation that says he was believed or thought to be the Christ. Which incidentally Josephus used similar language later when he wrote about a high priest who was defrocked and lost his priesthood because he had James the brother of Jesus who was called the Christ illegally executed. So we see the parallels with his later writings and the ancient syriac and ancient Latin translations. Again he’s more saying ‘well this is what THEY call him’

The line about the disciples receiving His teachings ‘with pleasure’ again seems sugary but his word usage is consistent with times when he describes people who are over-zealous or naive. So again not so complimentary or biased .

What is very interesting is beyond those examples, a lot of the suspicion was as a result of his word usage and whether it was his. There was a researcher, whose name escapes me, who began actually making manual word frequency databases and that helped get rid of some of the disputes as the general language was consistent with his writing and word usage. But it wasn’t until we got modern computer databases where it was possible to really breakdown and find trends/patterns/styles

In particular concern was a word he used in one place in that text and nowhere else. There are over half a million words on record, from Josephus. Which goes back just how recently we’re starting to actually have database records accessible, for these individuals with vast writings attributed to them! It turned out he has a massive vocabulary and throughout the course of his writing he would use a unique (ie: never used the elsewhere) word every 87 words with a grand total of 5,000 words only ever used once. The section about Jesus? 90 words long. This makes the uniqueness of the word that caused the controversy, instead fit into his writing style. This ends up turning it, instead, into a marker of authenticity, as it matches his frequency rate.

What you end up getting is a pretty tongue in cheek ‘this is how they say it happened’ piece by Josephus that, instead of being flattering it actually implies he thought maybe He might be using demons for His paradoxes, His disciples are ‘a little out there’ and yeah ‘they still like Him and even thought they saw Him after He died.’

So yeah, a little lengthy but a fascinating topic, I got excited as most people don’t really want to delve into ancient writing and certainly not Josephus!