I note this thread has completely changed direction but I feel I must reply to Rhubarb's earlier post.
Re your Wikipedia links and Suetonius.
The mention, by Suetonius of the expulsion of the Jews from Rome (c.52 CE) because of disturbances instigated by "Chrestus" is found in his biography of Claudius (25:4) and was written during the reign of the emperor Hadrian, (117-138 CE). If this in fact an error for "Christus" [a politico/religious title not a name] it could simply be a reference to some form of localised messianic agitation.
The other startling gap in the near-contemporary record is to be found in the [now lost writings of Justus of Tiberias] a contemporary of Josephus who wrote a Chronicle of the Kings of the Jews from Moses to Agrippa II.
However, this work was still extant in the ninth century because Photius (c.810-c.895) the Patriarch of Constantinople read it and recorded, in his still extant Bibliotheca, a summary of its contents. In this he states that "suffering from the common fault of the Jews, to which race he belonged, he (Justus) does not mention the coming of Christ, the events of his life, or the miracles performed by him."
Now to Josephus [37-c.100]. Much has been made of the so-called Testimonium Flavianum found in Book 18:63-64 of his Jewish Antiquities. This is what Origen [c.185-c. 254 CE] wrote in Book 10:17 of his commentary on Mathew's Gospel:
"And to so great a reputation among the people for righteousness did this James rise, that Flavius Josephus, who wrote the "Antiquities of the Jews" in twenty books, when wishing to exhibit the cause why the people suffered so great misfortunes that even the temple was razed to the ground, said, that these things happened to them in accordance with the wrath of God in consequence of the things which they had dared to do against James the brother of Jesus who is called Christ. And the wonderful thing is, that, though he did not accept Jesus as Christ, he yet gave testimony that the righteousness of James was so great; and he says that the people thought that they had suffered these things because of James."
[NB my emboldening for emphasis]
Here we have Origen, writing in the early third century, commentating on Josephus and attributing to Josephus sentiments that he clearly didn't display. The misfortune of the Jewish people as a result of the death of James is almost certainly Origen's gloss on what Josephus wrote] "and so he [Ananus the High Priest] convened the judges of the Sanhedrim and brought before them a man named James, the brother of Jesus, who was called the Christ, and certain others. He accused them of having trangressed the law and delivered them up to be stoned".
The earliest witness to the present text of these 2 passages is Eusebius [c.260- c.342 CE] the 4th century Bishop of Caesarea and ecclesiastical historian. As has been seen the passage concerning James in Josephus' original contains nothing which would have been impossible for a non-Christian Jew, such as Josephus, to have written.
The position is very different in regard to the other passage found in Antiquities 18.3.3:
"Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct to this day."
As it now stands this could only have been written by someone who accepted the semi-divinity of Jesus and his resurrection; in other words, someone who was a Christian. It is unlikely that as a Jew, Josephus would have referred to Jesus as the Messiah - (a) because the Jewish politico/religious title had a completely different meaning from the one ascribed to it by Gentile Christians and (b) to claim Jesus was the Messiah would have been a treasonable statement.
It should also be noted that no form of the Testimonium Flavianum is cited in the extant works of Justin Martyr, Theophilus Antiochenus, Melito of Sardis, Minucius Felix, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Julius Africanus, Pseudo-Justin, Tertullian, Hippolytus, Origen, Methodius, or Lactantius. Yet these authors were familiar with the works of Josephus.
This strongly suggests that this specific text was redacted or was even interpolated somewhere between Origen reading the work in the early 3rd century and Eusebius referring to it in the early 4th century.