Dr. Bock,

Yes, I do agree with you. Josephus is our best non-christian source about Jesus.

"We would have to doubt and question a great deal of what we understand about earlier classical history if we had to say a source centuries later for an event cannot count"

That is quite correct.

In fact, almost everything that we know about emperors Caligula, Claudius and Nero - "the great events, their deeds, and their achievements" - came from Tacitus and Suetonius. They wrote their books in early second century, about 50-75 years after Claudius' reign. Our extant first century testimony about those emperors is, at best, fragmentary. Shall we apply the criteria "any writing produced after the first century cannot be considered evidence" for Caligula's reign, for e.g ? The author's information was also second or third hand (and biased, because guys from senatorial class like Tacitus and Suetonius did care about balance of power between the Senate and the Emperors).

The great Hannibal fought battles like Cana, and put Rome existence at risk. The Second Punic War happened in end of third century BC. However, our main extants sources are Polibyus (half second century BC, about 50-75 years later) and Livy (early first century AD, 250 years later).

Nehemias