By William F. McInerny  

Preeminent theologian Hans Kung presents what he calls “a simple introduction to Christian theology” in his newest publication. This “simple introduction” is also novel in its embodiment of a select twofold emphasis. Readers are introduced to Christian theology via seven persons identified as (1) paradig-matic figures of entire eras who not only understood the world anew but also (2) changed their worlds and the worlds of others. Hence the appellation “great” Christian thinkers.

They are:

1. Paul of Tarsus, initiator of the first paradigm shift in Christianity, from Jewish Christianity to Hellenistic Gentile Christianity; the one responsible for Christianity’s becoming a universal religion.
2. Origen, the “man of steel” who first embodied a model of scientific theology; the consummate synthesizer of the Greek world and Christianity.
3. Augustine, the incomparable African, initiator of the Latin Catholic paradigm, father of all Latin Western Christianity.
4. Thomas Aquinas, creator of the mature classical form of medieval Roman Catholic theology.
5. Martin Luther, the reformer who brought forth the Protestant-evangelical paradigm in stark contrast to Latin Catholic medieval theology.
6. Friedrich Schleiermacher, church father of the 19th century; the one who shifted the reformation paradigm to modernity.
7. Karl Barth, church father of the 20th century, who simultaneously lauded Schleiermacher’s accomplishments as he demolished them with his own dialectical theology; the principal initiator of a postmodern paradigm of theology.

Kung’s dual focus is on these thinkers as persons within different cultural/historical environments, conjoined with a second emphasis on the effects of their thought on Christianity.

Kung describes and evaluates only enough of each person’s thought necessary to make clear the seismic force each exerted. He intends to assist readers in coming nearer to these thinkers without, however, presenting them fully.

Seeing these Titans refracted through the prism of Kung’s encyclopedic knowedge of history and doctrine is exhilarating. Though his interpretations are replete with supporting facts and the scholarly analyses of others, the selection of these specific seven and their portraits are distinctly Kung’s.

For example, even though each thinker is paradigmatic of an entire era, that does not mean each achieved a paradigm shift within Christianity. Kung associates Paul, Augustine, Luther, Schleier-macher and Barth with such shifts. On the other hand, Origen completed the paradigm shift begun by Paul. Aquinas is presented as too dependent on Augustine’s theology to merit the recognition of transcending it.

Additionally, Kung is most sympathetic to those thinkers embroiled in controversies with ecclesial authority figures. He delights in observing that Origen’s donnybrook with Bishop Demetrius was “the first great conflict in church history between a monarchical bishop and a free Christian teacher.”

He points out that, unlike Origen, Augustine became a bishop of the church. Unlike Augustine, Aquinas was a court theologian, “the great apologist of the centralist papacy.” Luther is hailed as the exemplar of a paradigm shift par excellence.

Click here for the full article.

By Rich Deem, Ph.D.  

The Dead Sea scrolls were discovered about 60 years ago, and have provided significant insight into the religious communities of both before and after the birth of Jesus. Some of these scrolls, dated to the first century B.C., have confirmed the authenticity of the book of Isaiah, including the famous “suffering servant” passage in Isaiah 52-53.¹ This passage describes “an arm of the Lord” who is “pierced through” and “like a lamb that is led to slaughter” as he “bore the sin of many.” Although written before the birth of Jesus, the text perfectly describes His ministry and death for the sins of mankind, as described in the books of the New Testament. The discovery of a first century B.C. stone tablet near the Dead Sea appears to extend the ancient prophecies of the “suffering servant” to include his death and resurrection three days later. The prophecies given in the tablet are attributed to the angel Gabriel, the same angel who announced the birth of Jesus to Zacharias and Mary.²

The stone tablet was discovered about a decade ago and purchased by David Jeselsohn, an expert and collector of antiquities. A few years ago Jesselsohn showed the stone to Ada Yardeni, an expert in ancient Hebrew, who determined that the text dated from the late first century B.C., based on the shape of the script and the language. Yuval Goren, a professor of archaeology at Tel Aviv University has analyzed of the chemistry of the stone and commented that he has no reason to doubt its authenticity, although his study has not been published yet. Yardeni and Binyamin Elitzur, another expert in ancient Hebrew, studied the stone and published their findings in the Hebrew-language quarterly Cathedra.

Click here for the full article.

Capernaum was a fishing village and trading post on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee during the first century AD. In the Bible, Capernaum was described as the village along the border of Zebulon and Naphtali where Jesus made his home after leaving Nazareth and starting his ministry (Matthew 4:13). It’s at Capernaum where we have early accounts of Jesus teaching both Jews in the synagogue and Romans in the homes. Jesus called four fishermen (Peter, Andrew, James and John) and a tax collector (Matthew) as disciples at Capernaum.

From AllAboutArchaeology.org

By John Mark Reynolds 

When reading old books, it is easy to display a chronological snobbery, as C.S. Lewis called it. The chronological snob is to time what the ethnocentric person is to ethnicity. His chronocentrism assumes that everyone in the past should know everything he knows or agree with all his assumptions. When visiting the past in his imagination, he views it as Cameron viewed the people of 1912 on Titanic: moderns with funny clothes and less stuff.

Sadly, it is even more common in students to be chronologically ignorant. Such people forget the progression of ideas and they assume every concept and word available to them was available in the past. They forget that language and ideas also develop (the Platonist of today is not the Platonist of yesterday) and imagine that the ancients thought like moderns without the technology.

But Abraham was not an American with sheep and no Ipod.

The Lord God of Sacred Scriptures is not a revolutionary, thank God. Rapid change in human culture has rarely been for the best and God does not make the mistake of the French or Russian revolutionaries. Each revolution was led by men who believed that they could rapidly bring heaven to earth, but ended up making France and Russia look more like hell. God knows that even a great good must be brought on slowly to avoid doing greater harm.

He is outside of time and no chronological snob, nor does the Divine Being suffer from chronocentrism.

God also has to communicate with people in language and concepts available to them, if He is to allow them to mature. Even attempting to describe the inner workings of the atom to a tribal people would be useless, since they lack the mental vocabulary to make sense of the message. Of course, God could directly reveal all this to humanity, but this would not allow for a natural cultural development.

Why is such a development so important? If a culture does not learn for itself what is good, true, and beautiful then it will not be an adult culture. It will depend forever on priestcraft and develop a magical, instead of rational, understanding of reality. If God is trying to raise up sons and daughters, part of a divine educational program, then He must slowly help us grasp the ideas behind what He wishes and we need.

We would be lost without divine revelation, but He is intent on giving us the time to truly understand what He is saying. He does not just force it on our imaginations.

Ideas that seem easy to humanity now are the result of thousands of years of human thought in conjunction with the work of God’s Spirit. Great genius is often required to understand the big ideas on which later, more incremental progress, is based. The very words to describe these ideas and to refine them must be invented. A Moses or a Socrates, sensitive and ready to learn rapidly from God and experience, is a rarity. Most humans can only progress at a much slower pace.

Click here for the full article.

Review by Kellia at Amazon.com 

The Canon of Scripture:
The dean of evangelical biblical scholars did a great service when he decided to get this work out of his system (Preface), since he made a very successful attempt indeed to communicate the state of knowledge on this tricky and sensitive subject. This book stands my Criterion: If I only have one book on the subject, I would buy this book. This book is methodical, written basically for Seminarians, still tickles your curious bone, but don’t get tricked by the smoothness of his elaboration, being a top exegesist and a reference on biblical criticism.

Preface & Chapter one:
Read the condensed preface attentively, it highlights Dr. F.F. Bruce’s intended strategy to leave the more controversial issues on the OT canon to R. Beckwith and J. Barton. The short chapter defines terms that became the vocabulary of the subject, their meaning and roots. ‘People of the Book’ conveys his cultural standing, but he avoids elaborating on the concept of the two testaments but will not but mention Jeremiah 31:31, and later how Origen was the first to use and propagate this Alexandrine terminology (p. 192 : on First Principles 4.1.1)

TaNaKh & Wider Canon:
Bruce, who said will shy from OT canon, masterfully instructs us in his own way, starting from the authority of OT for a Christian: Jesus appeal to TaNaKh, going from the threefold division to the closing of the Hebrew canon in Jabneh. Now, with a firm foot, he delves into the Alexandrine wider Canon starting with Septuagint origin, order of books, and adoption as Ancient Churches OT, and NT evidence, but does not state citations or allusions to the Apocrypha (K. & B. Aland: The text of the NT, Eerdmans, 1979) that he mentions (p. 51)

Old Testament Christian Canon: Prevalence of Alexandria:
The Rylands chair for two decades enlighten us on how one Church transmitted the light for all others. He starts by stating the authority of the early Uncials, Alexandrinus, Sinaiticus, and Vaticanus that are all products of the Alexandrine Scriptorium, and are the most reliable (contrary of Ehrman’s thesis). Along side other easterners, he elaborates on Origen, and Athanasius, the first to use the term Canon, in relation to scripture.

Very interesting is his review of 17th and 18th centuries accomodation of canon, and Biblical societies. The canon in the West: Tertullian, Jerome, Augustine, to the reformation: Luther, Erasmus, and Tyndale through Trentine Council to the King James Authorized Version.

New Testament Canon:
If I would propose any clarification to this enjoyable treatise, it would be to copy the names and order of the bible in Orthodox, Catholic, and protestant traditions from a good study Bible, say the Harper Collins NRSV, with Apocrypha. Although differences exist in OT books, NT books are the exact 27 books. Only that the order of books in a genuine Orthodox Bible follows the Order of St. Athanasius in his Pascal letter of 367, the Catholic Epistles precede the Pauline letters.

Hebrews and Apocalypse:
The authority of Dionysius the Great, on the Apocalypse of John, followed by all the Orientals (p. 213) in spite of their Canonical diversity was never challenged by Athanasius letter, intended to compromise Rome with the eastern Church. He persauded the Romans to accept the book of Hebrews, next only to John’s Bible in the Alexandrine NT theological priority (canon within the canon) of the Didaskalia and Catechetical School, compromising for the Apocalypse, then considered a liturgical text in the East.

Great Chapters to enjoy:
The Alexandrian Fathers
New Testament canon in the Age of printing
Criteria of Canonicity
A Canon within the Canon
Canon, Criticism, and interpretation

Further Readings:
1. Barr, J. “Holy Scripture: Canon, Authority, Criticism, Westminster press, Philadelphia, 1983
2. Beckwith,R. “The Old Testament Canon of NT Church,…” Eerdmans, Gr. Rapids, 1985
3. Metzger,B. “The Canon of the NT, its origin, development, and significance”,Oxford U. Press, 1987

By Fazale ‘Fuz’ Rana, Ph.D.

I woke up this mornin’, feelin’ ‘round for my shoes. Know ‘bout ‘at I got these old walkin’ blues. - Robert Johnson, Walkin’ Blues

New research by paleoanthropologists from Washington University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences indicates that modern humans were “feelin’ ‘round” for their shoes earlier than previously thought.

Anthropologists have great interest in the origin and natural history of footwear because it gives insight into a unique human cultural adaptation that assisted the spread of humanity around the world. Humans make use of footwear for protection in all environments and insulation in cold climates.

Unfortunately, footwear isn’t readily preserved in the archeological record because it is often made from soft material. The oldest footwear dates back to only about 10,000 years ago. [Work reported in 2005], however, demonstrated that foot anatomy can indirectly shed some light on the footwear use. Research indicates that toes become less robust when shoes are worn. Interestingly, other parts of the skeletal anatomy are unaffected. The 2005 study indicated that footwear was worn by modern humans about 30,000 years ago. Still, the question remains as to when the first footwear was worn.

A new opportunity to address the question surfaced recently with the discovery of modern human remains in a cave near Zhoukoudian, China. These remains date to about 40,000 years in age and include foot bones.

As part of this new study, the researchers compared the toe size of Europeans, Inuits, and Native Americans. For this study, the Europeans included in the sample made extensive use of footwear, the Inuits used crude footwear, and the Native Americans spent a significant time barefoot. They found that toe size inversely correlated with use of footwear, demonstrating the strength of this method to indirectly detect footwear use.

As part of the calibration, the scientists also examined the foot structure of Neanderthals and the near anatomically modern humans recovered in the Qafzeh-Skhul cave. The toes of both of these hominids were much more robust than even those of the Native Americans in the sample. It’s not likely that these creatures used shoes.

The researchers then determined that the toe size of the modern human remains recovered recently in China were consistent with extensive use of footwear. This find pushes the use of footwear back to 40,000 years ago.

This discovery fits well with the biblical account of human origins as embodied in the Reasons To Believe (RTB) creation model. In short, the RTB model for humanity’s beginnings asserts that God created Adam and Eve, in His image, through direct, miraculous intervention. (See Who Was Adam? for a detailed description of the model and the scientific support for it.)

This model regards the hominids found in the fossil record as animals also created by God’s direct involvement. Accordingly, these creatures existed for a time and then went extinct. RTB’s model considers the hominids to be remarkable creatures that walked erect, possessed some level of limited intelligence, and emotional capacity. This allowed these animals to employ crude tools and even adopt some level of ‘culture’ much like baboons, gorillas, and chimpanzees. While the RTB model posits that the hominids were created by God’s divine fiat, they were not spiritual beings, made in His image. The RTB model reserves this status exclusively for modern humans.

The RTB model treats the hominids as analogous to, but distinct from the great apes. Because of this, the RTB model predicts that anatomical, physiological, biochemical, and genetic similarities will exist among the hominids and modern humans to varying degrees. But since the hominids were not made in God’s image, they are expected to be clearly distinct from modern humans, particularly in their cognitive capacity, behavior, ‘technology,’ and ‘culture.’

The early appearance of footwear among modern humans—and the absence of any evidence for footwear usage among the hominids like Neanderthals and the near anatomically modern humans—match the predictions made by the RTB model. The use of footwear is a diagnostic for the image of God. This behavior requires advanced cognitive ability, creativity, and problem solving skills to recognize that covering the feet offers protection from harsh terrain and cold. Designing and manufacturing the tools to make footwear, too, reflects these same qualities.

Only humans made in God’s image get the “walkin’ blues.”

Posted at Reasons.org

By Dominic Buettner

Why is that man above smiling? David Jeselsohn bought an ancient tablet, above, but he was totally unaware of its significance. Now it may be the earliest Jewish evidence for the idea of a dying and rising messiah figure

There just isn’t enough controversy in Israel these days about Jesus, his death, burial and his resurrection. So, adding a little fuel to the fire is the revelation that comes from the finding of a substantial inscribed stone, probably dating to the first century B.C. that may refer to the death and resurrection of some sort of messiah figure. Here is the link to the NY Times which Bill Barnwell has kindly reminded me of, as I seem to have missed it: nytimes.com.

I take quite seriously the authenticity of this stone, since Ada Yardeni has weighed in on it, and found it genuine. So let us suppose it is genuine– let’s ask the question, So what?

If you read the article you will discover that one eclectic Jewish scholar is now suggesting that the Christians got the idea from this stone or its source, and then predicated the idea of Jesus. It would be just as simple to argue that Jesus knew of this idea, and predicated of himself. What this stone then would show is that there was in early Judaism some concept of a suffering messiah whom God might vindicate by resurrection before the time of Jesus.

This is not entirely surprising in view of Isaiah 53 in any case. But the real implication of this for Jesus’ studies should not be missed. Most radical Jesus scholars have argued that the passion and resurrection predictions by Jesus found in the Gospels were not actually made by Jesus– they reflect the later notions and theologizing of the Evangelists.

But now, if this stone is genuine there is no reason to argue this way. One can show that Jesus, just as well as the author of this stone, could have spoken about a dying and rising messiah. There is in any case a reference to a messiah who dies in the late first century A.D. document called 4 Ezra.

Long story short– this stone certainly does not demonstrate that the Gospel passion stories are created on the basis of this stone text, which appears to be a Dead Sea text. For one thing the text is hard to read at crucial junctures, and it is not absolutely clear it is talking about a risen messiah. BUT what it does do is make plausible that Jesus could have said some of the things credited to him in Mk. 8.31, 9,31, and 10.33-34. I will have more to say about the relevance of early Jewish material for the study of the historical Jesus shortly, in a lengthy review of David Flusser’s final and interesting Jesus book The Sage from Galilee. 

Posted at benwitherington.blogspot.com

Review by Thomas Wagner.

I thought it would be appropriate to write a review of one of the most logical and well reasoned publications about the Resurrection. Frank Morison was a lawyer by profession. He set out to write a book that logically disproved and once and for all settled the question that many people have: Could the Resurrection have happened?

After much research and diligent “discovery of facts” to use a legal term, Mr. Morison ended up writing a book that was completely the opposite of what he had originally set out for. To be sure that was not at all his intention. He most definetly was not a religious zealot or highly spiritual individual. He was a man like many others with some vestiges of religion left over from his childhood. Instead of disproving the notion of the Resurrection, Mr. Morison writes that having seen all the facts one is left with only one conclusion - yes it happened.

As strange of an idea as it maybe. Just like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s  Sherlock Holmes -  Mr. Morison showed logically and diligently that after all the facts have been weighed, the solution that is supported by those facts - however unlikely it may sound or look - would have to be the truth.

Guided by his legal training, Frank Morison takes the reader through the last two days of Jesus’ ministry, as well as evaluating what information is available on early Christianity during the time of Paul.  He dissects all available information and walks his readers through a time table that shows so many unusual and inconsistent events that one is left to wonder how one could have missed these clues in the original Scripture.

Click here for the full article.

Review by John Jay Hughes

As they look down from the heights of our culture, writers at the New York Times, the New York Review of Books, CBS’s 60 Minutes, and much of the professoriat on both sides of the Atlantic contemplate the sorry role of the Catholic Church in 20th-century history. In July 1933 the Vatican, always more comfortable with dictatorships than with democracies, helped Hitler consolidate his power by throwing overboard the Catholic Center party, which had defended the rights of German Catholics since 1870, in order to conclude a Concordat with Nazi Germany, thus becoming the first international power to recognize Germany’s new Führer. In Italy the Church welcomed Mussolini’s racial laws. The Church’s centuries old anti-Judaism furnished justification and encouragement for Nazi anti-Semitism, which culminated in the Holocaust. Welcoming Hitler’s crusade against Soviet Communism, the wartime pope, Pius XII, remained silent in the face of Hitler’s Final Solution, thus meriting the title of “Hitler’s Pope,” the man co-responsible for the death of six million Jews.

In Sacred Causes: Religion and Politics from the European Dictators to al Qaeda, his masterly survey of religion and politics from the end of World War I to the present day, British historian Michael Burleigh shows what serious students of twentieth century history have long known: every one of these widely believed assertions is false. Though a Catholic himself, Burleigh does not spare criticism of Church leaders when he finds it merited. The previous holder of prestigious academic appointments on both sides of the Atlantic, aversion to what he calls “the left university” has led him to prefer free-lance authorship.

The Vatican and Hitler

Far from being a “pact with Hitler,” the Concordat was a defensive treaty guaranteeing Church rights. Why was it needed? Emergency legislation enacted shortly after Hitler took office on January 31, 1933, enabled him to suspend the Weimar constitution, thus rendering its guarantee of religious freedom null and void. During the three months of negotiations which preceded treaty’s signing, the Holy See tried repeatedly to find a way for the Center party to continue its activities. It abandoned the attempt only when the party dissolved itself on July 4, leaving the Nazis the sole party still in existence in Germany.

Nor was the Vatican the first power to sign a treaty with Hitler. That honor belongs to the Soviet Union, which concluded trade agreements with the Reich in May 1933. Church leaders were realistic about the Concordat’s supposed protections. “With the Concordat we are hanged,” Munich’s Cardinal Faulhaber remarked. “Without it we are hanged, drawn, and quartered.” In Rome the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pacelli (later Pius XII), told the British minister to the Holy See that he had signed the treaty with a pistol at his head. Hitler was sure to violate the agreement, Pacelli said - adding with gallows humor that he would probably not violate all its provisions at once. Between September 1933 and March 1937 Pacelli signed over seventy notes and memoranda protesting such violations, culminating in his draft of the papal encyclical Mit brennender Sorge, called by Burleigh “an immensely astute critique of everything that Nazism stood for.”

Burleigh calls Hitler “a lazy, dilettantish autodidact rather than a systematic thinker … a cavernous blank behind the impassioned postures … rabidly anticlerical, rarely missing an opportunity to make snide and vulgar comments, in private, about the pope, priests and pastors. His sallies into theological matters were unimpressive, the musings of a saloon-bar bore.” The Führer’s Fascist ally, Mussolini, by contrast, was “a virile and omnipresent figure: fencing, riding, skiing, or wrestling submissive lions and tigers in the zoo. … Like Hitler, Mussolini was also a ‘workerist’, although in common with the Führer he had successfully avoided honest toil most of his life.”

The Church’s response to Mussolini’s racial laws was unequivocal. “It is not possible for Christians to take part in anti-Semitism,” the aged Pius XI told a group of Belgian pilgrims in September 1938. “Spiritually we are Jews.” Both the pope and Pacelli materially aided Jews affected by the Italian racial laws, finding some of them jobs in the Vatican, helping others to emigrate abroad.

Uninformed Criticisms

Critics who claim that Hitler’s persecution of the Jews was the logical consequence of the Church’s anti-Judaism seem unaware that this argument was regularly advanced by the Nazis and Fascists themselves, only to be as often refuted by Church spokesmen.

Six months after Pacelli’s election as Pope Pius XII, he issued his first encyclical, Summi pontificatus. The New York Times called it “a powerful attack on totalitarianism and the evils which he considers it has brought upon the world. … It is Germany that stands condemned above any country or any movement in this encyclical - the Germany of Hitler and National Socialism.” The head of Hitler’s Gestapo agreed: “The encyclical is directed exclusively against Germany, both in ideology and in regard to the German-Polish dispute” - a reference to the pope’s explicitly expressed sympathy for Catholic Poland, then at the beginning of its long agony at the hands of Nazis and Soviets alike. If Vatican Radio soon ceased broadcasting accounts of these atrocities, this was in response to pleas from bishops in Poland, who reported that the broadcasts had provoked reprisals which worsened the suffering of their people.

Click here for the full article.

By J.P. Holding 

The works of the first-century historian Josephus have been held in high regard by Christians throughout history. The early church, Schreckenberg writes, saw Josephus as “a kind of fifth gospel” and a “little Bible” [Feld.JosJes, 317], because his works “appeared to Christian theologians to be a commentary or a historic appendix to the New Testament.” (ibid., 319) The church’s love for Josephus “assured him an ongoing role in Western tradition.” [Maso.JosNT, 8] Closer to modern times, households in France, Holland and England were known to present newborns with inscribed copies of Josephus, right along with the Bible. [Hada.FJos, 2] Thus it is that the particular references to Jesus have been held historically in the highest esteem - and perhaps, also why they have resulted in the most spilled ink!

We will not investigate the question of Josephus’ reliability closely here, for there is little question that Josephus is a generally reliable historian. He had his biases, of course, and he was, unfortunately, something of a traitor to his people! However, questions as to his accuracy as a historian are not what turn up regarding his references to Jesus. Rather, they focus, almost to the point of obsession, on this question:

Are these genuine references, or are there doubts about their veracity?

There are two quotes that mention Jesus in Josephus’ Antiquities: A smaller and a larger one. Both of these have been targeted by the Jesus-myth circle as interpolations made by later Christian scribes. Wells [Well.WhoW, 21; Well.DidJ, 14], for example, rejects the small passage as a partial interpolation or marginal gloss, as did Drews [Drew.WH, 10]. Stretching the polemic, Wells says that it is “widely admitted” that both this passage, and the larger one are interpolations. [Well.HistEv, 18] (Wells’ “widely” estimation is quite a bit off. According to Feldman’s discernible statistics [Feld.JosMod, 684-91], four scholars regard the larger passage as completely genuine, six more as mostly genuine; twenty accept it with some interpolations, nine with several interpolations; thirteen regard it as being totally an interpolation as Wells does.) Twleftree [Twel.GosP5, 300], offering an unusual view, rejects the smaller passage on rather thin terminological grounds, but strangely accepts most of the larger passage as genuine! Needless to say, there is plenty of discussion about these passages, and we will only be able to touch the tip of the iceberg.

Let us begin in the natural place to start: By quoting the materials in question. Here is the first and smaller quote:

Antiquities 20.9.1 But the younger Ananus who, as we said, received the high priesthood, was of a bold disposition and exceptionally daring; he followed the party of the Sadducees, who are severe in judgment above all the Jews, as we have already shown. As therefore Ananus was of such a disposition, he thought he had now a good opportunity, as Festus was now dead, and Albinus was still on the road; so he assembled a council of judges, and brought before it the brother of Jesus the so-called Christ, whose name was James, together with some others, and having accused them as law-breakers, he delivered them over to be stoned.

It is the words “the so-called Christ” that are thought to be interpolated here - assuming that this passage is even noticed; some writers, I have observed, seem to forget that it exists! But let us consider the arguments for and against regarding this as an interpolation.

1. First, there is no textual evidence against this passage. It is found in every copy of the Antiquities we have [Meie.MarJ, 57]. This also applies to the larger passage. [ibid., 62] Some will assert as a counter that there was still sufficient time for an interpolation to occur and not enough textual evidence to prove that it didn’t, but this amounts to an admission that the textual data, as it stands, favors authenticity. Anything beyond that in these terms is speculation and question-begging!
2. Second, there is a specific use of non-Christian terminology: The designation of James as the “brother of Jesus” contrasts with Christian practice of referring to him as the “brother of the Lord” or “brother of the Savior.” (as in Gal. 1:19 in the NT and Eusebius in later history). The passage “squares neither with New Testament nor with early patristic usage.” [ibid., 58]In response to this Wells objects that “an interpolator might well have been aware that an orthodox Jewish writer could not possibly be represented as calling Jesus ‘the Lord.’ We do not have to assume that all interpolators went to work with more piety than sense.” [Well.JesL, 53]Wells’ argument is refuted by the interpolations themselves. Evidence that interpolators did have “more piety than sense” is in fact found in the larger passage in Josephus itself, where an interpolator has Josephus confessing that Jesus is “the Christ.” If an interpolator added this sort of sentiment, knowing that Josephus was an orthodox Jew, then certainly he (or another interpolator) would have been careless enough to refer to James as “the brother of the Lord,” had this small passage been a forgery.
3. Third, we may note the emphasis of the passage. It is not on Jesus or even James, but on Ananus the high priest and the turbulence he caused. There is no praise for James or Jesus. This is not what we would expect if this were an interpolation. [Meie.MarJ, 58-9]
4. Fourth, Josephus’ account of James being stoned is different from the account given by the church historian Hegesippus, who has James being thrown from the roof of the Temple. [ibid., 57] This would be an unlikely move for an interpolator.
5. Fifth, neither this passage nor the larger one connects Jesus with John the Baptist, as we would expect from a Christian interpolator.

The bulk of the evidence therefore favors highly the genuineness of this passage.

Click here for the full article.