Prof Avalos:

Thank you for taking the time to clarify this discussion. Sorry for the misunderstanding although I do not think it alters the key point of the value of Josephus as much as your response suggests. 

Working with manuscripts of this kind of date like those for Josephus is not unusual in ancient materials (especially when the testimony they contain receives earlier attestation in the testimony from other writers pointing to their existence earlier). This kind of cross attestation works as a check for our understanding of these texts and their age. I dare say that if we handled a great deal of classical materials on analogy with this level of hesitiation there would be swaths of classicial history and testimony about the period we'd have to set aside or at least asterisk.

The importance of the Antiquities 20.200 reference for the Testimonium is that this is the kind of incidental detail that is unlikely to be a later addition to make Josephus look more "Christian". As such it shows the likelihood that the topic was raised earlier in his work, as it seems to assume such a reference.

As we both know, work in Textual Criticism with NT manuscripts [and we do have a ton of them, many of them quite early] and with the historical Jesus are both areas of intense discussion in NT studies. Your last sentence says a great deal. I suspect what we would regard as "pure historical inquiry" would differ when it comes to texts laden with claims of divine activity such as those from Judaism, the Second Temple period and from what became the New Testament.

dlb