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>He gives colour to his narratives, his incidents are always sketched with vigour; this account would be meagre beside those of the riot of the Jews and the rascality of the priests of Isis. Josephus asserts, moreover, that in his time there were four sects of the Jews--the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Essenes, and the sect of Judas of Gamala. He gives tolerably copious particulars about these sects and their teachings, but of the Christian sect he says not a word. Had he wished to write about it, he would have given full details, likely to interest his readers, and not have dismissed the subject in a couple of lines.”
>What Baring-Gould wrote over a century ago is nevertheless just as true today, but by the 20th century, popular opinion shifted and the majority of scholars decided some parts of the text were genuine. Most biblical scholars and something like three out of four Josephus scholars now believe there is a Josephan core within the interpolation. The choppy way the sentences are formed could indicate that the more glowing compliments were added later. But, assuming the passage was added on to, that does not prove that the earlier version was not itself an interpolation. Regardless of how many times the Testimonium Flavian was edited, the entire passage is out of context. The “sad calamity” that “put the Jews into disorder” is undoubtedly referring to the sedition over Temple funds that comes before the Testimonium Flavian. It is also in the middle of a list of massacres of Pharisees caused by an evil an overbearing Pilate bringing catastrophe after catastrophe on the Pharisees, whereas the Testimonium suddenly paints Pilate as being the puppet of the Pharisees, just as they are portrayed in the gospels
