The Case for the Historical Christ

[Paul of Tarsus]

Can we make a case that Jesus really lived? Whatever else you might think of him, the answer to this question is not hard to come up with.

The first and perhaps most commonly cited reason to believe Jesus lived is that we know that the popular majority of New Testament authorities think he lived. So in the same way you can be sure that evolution has occurred because the consensus of evolutionary biologists think evolution happened, you can be sure Christ lived based on what his experts think about his historicity.

Now, one of the reasons New Testament authorities are so sure Christ existed is because Christ's followers wrote of his crucifixion. The disciples were very embarrassed about the crucifixion, and therefore we can be sure they didn't make up the story. Why would they create a Messiah who died such a shameful death? The only sensible answer is that they had to tell the whole truth about Jesus even if it went against the belief that the Messiah would conquer all.

We also have many people who attested to Jesus. In addition to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; we also have Paul and John of Patmos who wrote of Jesus. If Bible writers aren't convincing enough, then we have Josephus and Tacitus who wrote of Jesus, both of whom were not Christians. Yes, one person might write of a mythological figure, but when we have so many writing of Jesus, then we are assured he must have lived.

Finally, we have Paul's writing of Jesus' brother James whom Paul knew. As even some atheist Bible authorities have said, Jesus must have existed because he had a brother.

So it looks like we can safely conclude that Jesus mythicists have no leg to stand on. Unlike Jesus authorities who have requisite degrees in Biblical studies and teach New Testament at respected universities, Jesus mythicists are made up primarily of internet atheists and bloggers who can use the internet to say what they want without regard to credibility. They've been said to be in the same league as Holocaust deniers and young-earth creationists.

[Mithrae]

Note what it says. Ananus ben Ananus was the "bold" and "insolent" Jewish high priest. He had James, "brother of Jesus" executed, for which the King removed him as high priest and replaced him with Jesus "son of Damneus."

If "who is called Christ" is removed, then we have the story of Ananus being punished by the king for executing James ben Damneus by having James' brother, Jesus, made high priest. It's not certain, but it fits both the context and the form of a potential Christian interpolation. It might even be "likely."

I'd say it's a solution desperately in need of a problem. From Paul and Hegesippus we could already reasonably conclude that James the brother of Jesus lived in Jerusalem around that time, and was killed there. From Origen (one of the main sources debunking the extant TF) we have fairly early confirmation of the peculiar phrasing of "the brother of Jesus who was called Christ," attributed to Josephus and recollected verbatim on three occasions and attributed more specifically to Antiquities of the Jews on one, albeit also apparently conflated with details from Hegesippus. Josephus' reference to that event is not incongruous, is not even particularly interested in James himself except as a catalyst for the change in priesthood, sparing only a neutral, economical identification for readers who'd heard of his more widely-known brother. There's simply no reason to think Josephus wrote anything other than what we read or meant anything other than the obvious.

Speculation that the passage originally had only "the brother of Jesus" carries about the same value as speculation that it originally had "the brother of Jesus who was called Christ, the one crucified under Pilate." In fact I'd argue the latter is a little less far-fetched, since it makes the identification even clearer while the former makes the identification/structure more confusing! But I doubt there's anyone who'd spare even a second thought for the latter version, let alone suggesting it likely...

One thing I will point out is that the Jewish society from around that time, there were two different people that were 'anointed' in the temple. Christ means 'anointed one' . The two positions that were anointed were 1) The king of the Jews', and 2) The high priest.

So, Ananus was an 'anointed one' (christ in Greek)

I think you mean Jesus (ben Damneus) became a christ? Pretty much the only view of the passage more strained than baseless speculation of a Christ-free original is the view that Josephus introduced this messianically-charged term 'Christ' on just this one (undisputed) occasion, not as a passing clarification for readers in Rome who might have heard of the Christian sect, but out of the blue as some kind of confusing and unexplained title or nickname for one of the most obscure among many high priests... labelled as such before he even became high priest!

[Difflugia]

I'd say it's a solution desperately in need of a problem. From Paul and Hegesippus we could already reasonably conclude that James the brother of Jesus lived in Jerusalem around that time, and was killed there.

The problems I have with most of the Church Fathers being treated as history are essentially the same ones that I have with modern apologetics.

• They treat the canonical Gospels as history.
• They read data from the Gospels back into potentially better sources of history.
• Their histories are polemic against specific interpretations of history that mess with their theology.

I don't think that Paul alone is enough to conclude that James was a physical brother of Jesus. I don't think it's out of the question, but I think Paul's wording is weird enough that his testimony alone isn't enough to "reasonably conclude" that to the exclusion of an equally reasonable conclusion that he wasn't.

The overall direction I go with this is that I think (and I think I've mentioned this before) that the epistle of James was written by the real James as polemic against the real Paul, with whom he was contemporary. The epistle of James is generally regarded as early and the main objections to it being legitimate revolve around the author being too educated to be a fisherman from a Galilean village. If we work the other way, though, and accept the early Paulines, James, and Jude to be genuine, then we have James being referred to as "brother of the Lord" and Jude being the "brother of James." If Jesus' origin in Nazareth is a pun on (or misunderstanding of) "Jesus the Nazorean" and the inspiration for the Gospel stories, we get the transformation of Hellenistic Jews from Jerusalem into a family of characters in a story set in rural Galilee. Not insignificantly, this helps explain why all of the earliest Christian documents were composed in Greek rather than Aramaic. It would also help explain why Jude considered it more important to call himself the "brother of James" (which he perhaps really was) rather than the brother of Jesus (which, by extension, he should also have been). It's perhaps understandable from a humility standpoint that James wouldn't call himself the brother of Jesus, but then we're in the position of Jude being sort of half-humble; he's not above dropping the name of the temporal leader of the church, but he's too humble to claim a sibling relationship to "the Lord."

This brings us to Hegesippus. Hegesippus wrote in the second century, dating his writing after (and therefore, probably influenced by) the canonical Gospels. He still refers to James as "brother of the Lord." It's clear that Hegesippus does mean James to be the physical brother of Jesus (he refers to James and Jude as members of the "family of the Lord after the flesh"), but this again smacks of wording out of some sort of creed. This is important because Hegesippus was traditionally an anti-Marcionite apologist and Marcion was a docetist. Though it's unclear exactly how Marcion understood his docetism, it seems to me that Jesus having flesh-and-blood siblings would put a bit of a dent in that particular doctrine. That means that Marcion didn't consider Paul to be referring to a sibling of Jesus and either didn't know or discounted any other traditions that Jesus had siblings. This distinction would be exactly the sort that would end up affecting the wording of the early creeds. We have little of what Hegesippus wrote, so we have equally little context or indication of sources. At the very least, we have evidence of competing traditions involving the exact relationship between Jesus, James, and Jude.

From Origen (one of the main sources debunking the extant TF) we have fairly early confirmation of the peculiar phrasing of "the brother of Jesus who was called Christ," attributed to Josephus and recollected verbatim on three occasions and attributed more specifically to Antiquities of the Jews on one, albeit also apparently conflated with details from Hegesippus.

I think that's reasonable, but again, not conclusive. If "who was called Christ" is, in fact, an interpolation and Origen was thinking of Hegesippus instead of Josephus, then Origen may have been the source (or inspiration, rather) for the interpolation. What Origen wrote is a pretty reasonable paraphrase of what Hegesippus wrote. If it was already Christian tradition that the James mentioned by Josephus referred to James the Just and that was the source of Origen's confusion, then it's a small step for a Christian copyist to align the "real" Josephus with Origen's mistaken recollection of it.

The problem with that is that such an interpolation (if not made by Origen himself) must have occurred soon enough after for it to be present in all extant manuscripts of Josephus, yet be independent of the TF, which is not.

Josephus' reference to that event is not incongruous, is not even particularly interested in James himself except as a catalyst for the change in priesthood, sparing only a neutral, economical identification for readers who'd heard of his more widely-known brother. There's simply no reason to think Josephus wrote anything other than what we read or meant anything other than the obvious.

Speculation that the passage originally had only "the brother of Jesus" carries about the same value as speculation that it originally had "the brother of Jesus who was called Christ, the one crucified under Pilate." In fact I'd argue the latter is a little less far-fetched, since it makes the identification even clearer while the former makes the identification/structure more confusing! But I doubt there's anyone who'd spare even a second thought for the latter version, let alone suggesting it likely...

Ultimately, there are enough possibilities here that though I'm willing to accept the Josephus passage as interesting or anomalous from the standpoint of a fictional Jesus that I don't think it's worth the weight that's put on it. Josephus otherwise pays no attention to Christianity at all. Even if Josephus wrote exactly what we have now and meant exactly what it sounds like, then it's still not unlikely that his source is Christian tradition. If James carried a metaphorical designation of "brother of he Lord," then Josephus may have misunderstood it in exactly the way that later Christians did. We have similar traditions being referred to about Christianity by other authors, including that Christians were incestuous (Celsus, in apparently another misunderstanding of the Christian use of the term "brethren"), were cannibals, and that Marcion literally seduced a virgin (according Ehrman, a metaphor for the Christian Church) despite being ascetic.

Even in the most favorable light, the best we can say for certain is that Josephus, like (at least) post-Pauline Christians, thought that the martyred James was the literal brother of Jesus. That's certainly not nothing, but if the later Christian tradition is mistaken, then it wouldn't be odd if Josephus was, too.

[Mithrae]

From Origen (one of the main sources debunking the extant TF) we have fairly early confirmation of the peculiar phrasing of "the brother of Jesus who was called Christ," attributed to Josephus and recollected verbatim on three occasions and attributed more specifically to Antiquities of the Jews on one, albeit also apparently conflated with details from Hegesippus.

I think that's reasonable, but again, not conclusive. If "who was called Christ" is, in fact, an interpolation and Origen was thinking of Hegesippus instead of Josephus, then Origen may have been the source (or inspiration, rather) for the interpolation. What Origen wrote is a pretty reasonable paraphrase of what Hegesippus wrote. If it was already Christian tradition that the James mentioned by Josephus referred to James the Just and that was the source of Origen's confusion, then it's a small step for a Christian copyist to align the "real" Josephus with Origen's mistaken recollection of it.

The problem with that is that such an interpolation (if not made by Origen himself) must have occurred soon enough after for it to be present in all extant manuscripts of Josephus, yet be independent of the TF, which is not.

The existence of James the brother of Jesus is attested by Paul who personally knew him and by Josephus who (if he didn't personally know him) was the next best thing, a longtime resident of the same city in which James was also a longtime fairly prominent resident. That's about as good as it gets for ancient historiography, better than for all but a very few other figures. Plus there's the various other sources on James like the gospels and Hegesippus, weaker sources of course but obviously still noteworthy evidence added to the pile.

The weakness of mythicists' response to this evidence is very telling, it seems to me: In this case totally arbitrary speculation that maybe Josephus didn't write what's there or didn't mean the obvious, essentially doctoring the evidence in a way that turns a perfectly incongruous passage into a convoluted and confusing way of saying... something.

We are supposed to simply guess that maybe he didn't write "who was called Christ," on the basis of absolutely zero textual or contextual evidence. If we then also guess that "James the brother of Jesus" was the son of Damneus (which would not at all be clear) we'd be left to guess why he was identified so ambiguously and the eventual clues to his identity structured so strangely; and perhaps more to the point why Josephus didn't even bother to explain this deadly high-level feud within the priesthood. We must then further guess as to how the extant text came to be, by assuming
a) the remarkable coincidence that both James the brother of Jesus Christ and 'James the brother of Jesus son of Damneus' were killed in Jerusalem in the years preceding the war (per Josephus and Hegesippus) and
b) Origen mistakenly conflated the two and
c) he himself came up with that particularly neutral phrasing "brother of Jesus who was called Christ" and
d) some Christian scribe who'd read Origen 'corrected' the Josephus text with that particular phrase but none of the other details and
e) by that stage over a century after writing there were still few enough copies of Josephus in circulation that the interpolation made its way into all extant families and versions.

All totally without a scrap of supporting evidence, and four of which (a, c, d and e) don't seem particularly likely even in isolation! Just to explain how the arbitrarily-speculated interpolation came to exist at all. We could substitute (a) for an alternative - and similarly unlikely - guess that James the Just wasn't actually killed in Jerusalem around that time, but rather Hegesippus or some other speculative source misunderstood Josephus and then proceeded to invent James' martyrdom legend out of otherwise thin air. Either version leaves us with a threadbare and frankly quite laughable feat of imagination from start to finish: And yet this is the sort of thing which folk partial to mythicism manage to convince themselves is "not certain but... might be likely."

Even in the most favorable light, the best we can say for certain is that Josephus, like (at least) post-Pauline Christians, thought that the martyred James was the literal brother of Jesus. That's certainly not nothing, but if the later Christian tradition is mistaken, then it wouldn't be odd if Josephus was, too.

There's no reason to suspect that "later Christian tradition" - most notably the gospel of Mark written c. 65-70 CE and the distinct sources used by Luke/Acts c. 76-100 CE - was mistaken. Paul unequivocally describes a real flesh and blood Jesus who "made himself nothing, taking on the very form of a servant," was "born of a woman under the law," "descended from David according to the flesh" and shed his blood as a sacrifice for mankind. While some of that is obviously theological and a witness more to Paul's beliefs than to historical fact, it remains a statistically highly probable inference from Paul's flesh and blood Jesus that he had siblings born of that same woman... and Paul specifically identifies one such person by name.

Paul constantly calls all Christians brothers and sisters with one another, and declares that they are destined to be changed into the heavenly image of Jesus (1 Cor. 15, Rom. 8:29 as you mentioned earlier), but only on two occasions does he identify anyone here and now as siblings to Jesus; in both cases a discrete group, honoured alongside the apostles (Gal. 1, 1 Cor. 9). Speculation that this was some kind of title in the church is not only baseless, but more importantly runs headlong into the facts firstly that when Paul enumerates the various positions or members of the body of Christ there's no hint of "brothers of the Lord" as one of the roles in play (1 Cor. 12), and secondly that if it were not mere biology such a distinguished title would run contrary to the general egalitarianism expressed by Paul (including in that passage and his references to James) whose main exceptions are the rather defensive emphases on his own importance. According to Paul, apostles - literally 'emissaries' or 'those who are sent' - like him were "appointed first," but ultimately among a body of equals: We would not expect him to endorse or mention a much grander-sounding title like "brothers of the Lord" at all, unless perhaps he were claiming it for himself as he did apostleship, but if it were a title and Paul did mention it then we'd certainly expect to see it listed alongside all the other church roles he enumerates.

The fact that it is not listed as a church role, and the fact that Paul uses what would be a lofty designation for anyone besides himself at all, are both compelling reasons to conclude that "brother of the Lord" was not some kind of church title. Rather it simply reflects the statistically probable fact that Jesus, born of a woman, had some siblings born of that same woman... one of whom Paul was personally acquainted with.

All of which is obviously backed up by the unanimous and not-inconsiderable evidence from other 1st century and Jewish-Christian sources. We would be fully justified in concluding biological brothers of Jesus from Paul alone, but trying to maintain a contrary view in the face of the wider field of evidence available is almost - almost - as much of a reach as the supposed Josephus interpolation.

[Mithrae]

This is important because Hegesippus was traditionally an anti-Marcionite apologist and Marcion was a docetist. Though it's unclear exactly how Marcion understood his docetism, it seems to me that Jesus having flesh-and-blood siblings would put a bit of a dent in that particular doctrine. That means that Marcion didn't consider Paul to be referring to a sibling of Jesus and either didn't know or discounted any other traditions that Jesus had siblings.

As I understand it docetism could fit comfortably within a historicist view of Jesus; still belief in a being who existed and interacted within physical history, merely holding that this being was some kind of angelic/spiritual simulacrum rather than a flesh and blood human.

In the history of Christianity, docetism (from the Koin Greek: / doken "to seem", dksis "apparition, phantom"[1][2]) is the heterodox doctrine that the phenomenon of Jesus, his historical and bodily existence, and above all the human form of Jesus, was mere semblance without any true reality.[3][4] Broadly it is taken as the belief that Jesus only seemed to be human, and that his human form was an illusion.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Docetism

Would such a view require denial of Jesus' (apparent) birth of a woman? The birth of a simulacrum is not inherently any weirder than the crucifixion and burial of a simulacrum, to my mind. If derived from Paul's writings, the concern of docetics would not have been with the human life cycle itself but with the theological implications of the flesh. In fact far from undermining any of Jesus' human characteristics besides the flesh, Pauline-derived docetism would presumably follow Paul in maintaining that Jesus was indeed the seed of Abraham in some sense, "born under the law to redeem those under the law" and so on. It would require rather strained interpretations of those ideas and several other passages, but offhand I suspect the only Pauline passage which docetics would unequivocally have to reject is the declaration that Jesus was descended from David "according to the flesh."

Of course in Marcion's case specifically, if memory serves, he rejected the Tanakh entirely, so he obviously would have had to take far more liberties editing the Pauline (and Lukan) corpus than just a few words from Romans and strained interpretations elsewhere! If so his 'understanding' of what Paul meant would be a bit of a non sequitur to begin with.

[Goat]

Note what it says. Ananus ben Ananus was the "bold" and "insolent" Jewish high priest. He had James, "brother of Jesus" executed, for which the King removed him as high priest and replaced him with Jesus "son of Damneus."

If "who is called Christ" is removed, then we have the story of Ananus being punished by the king for executing James ben Damneus by having James' brother, Jesus, made high priest. It's not certain, but it fits both the context and the form of a potential Christian interpolation. It might even be "likely."

I'd say it's a solution desperately in need of a problem. From Paul and Hegesippus we could already reasonably conclude that James the brother of Jesus lived in Jerusalem around that time, and was killed there. From Origen (one of the main sources debunking the extant TF) we have fairly early confirmation of the peculiar phrasing of "the brother of Jesus who was called Christ," attributed to Josephus and recollected verbatim on three occasions and attributed more specifically to Antiquities of the Jews on one, albeit also apparently conflated with details from Hegesippus. Josephus' reference to that event is not incongruous, is not even particularly interested in James himself except as a catalyst for the change in priesthood, sparing only a neutral, economical identification for readers who'd heard of his more widely-known brother. There's simply no reason to think Josephus wrote anything other than what we read or meant anything other than the obvious.

Speculation that the passage originally had only "the brother of Jesus" carries about the same value as speculation that it originally had "the brother of Jesus who was called Christ, the one crucified under Pilate." In fact I'd argue the latter is a little less far-fetched, since it makes the identification even clearer while the former makes the identification/structure more confusing! But I doubt there's anyone who'd spare even a second thought for the latter version, let alone suggesting it likely...

One thing I will point out is that the Jewish society from around that time, there were two different people that were 'anointed' in the temple. Christ means 'anointed one' . The two positions that were anointed were 1) The king of the Jews', and 2) The high priest.

So, Ananus was an 'anointed one' (christ in Greek)

I think you mean Jesus (ben Damneus) became a christ? Pretty much the only view of the passage more strained than baseless speculation of a Christ-free original is the view that Josephus introduced this messianically-charged term 'Christ' on just this one (undisputed) occasion, not as a passing clarification for readers in Rome who might have heard of the Christian sect, but out of the blue as some kind of confusing and unexplained title or nickname for one of the most obscure among many high priests... labelled as such before he even became high priest!

Well, since a 'christ' includes being a high priest.. why yes. The thing is, you have to remember Josephus got out of being executed by Vespasian when he got captured by claiming the Vespasian is the promised Messiah of the Jews. He would not be risking his life by insinuating another person was the promised Messiah other than Vespasian. That leads to the conclusion it's either Jesus ben Damneus, or an interpolation.

[Mithrae]

I think you mean Jesus (ben Damneus) became a christ? Pretty much the only view of the passage more strained than baseless speculation of a Christ-free original is the view that Josephus introduced this messianically-charged term 'Christ' on just this one (undisputed) occasion, not as a passing clarification for readers in Rome who might have heard of the Christian sect, but out of the blue as some kind of confusing and unexplained title or nickname for one of the most obscure among many high priests... labelled as such before he even became high priest!

Well, since a 'christ' includes being a high priest.. why yes. The thing is, you have to remember Josephus got out of being executed by Vespasian when he got captured by claiming the Vespasian is the promised Messiah of the Jews. He would not be risking his life by insinuating another person was the promised Messiah other than Vespasian. That leads to the conclusion it's either Jesus ben Damneus, or an interpolation.

Yes, he positioned Vespasian as Messiah, which makes it all the more ridiculous - even beyond the reason above - to imagine that he took it upon himself to proclaim a prominent Jewish priest to be Christ!

In the case of Jesus of Nazareth, Josephus obviously didn't take it upon himself to confer that title, it was one which many or likely most of his readers would have already heard about in the name 'Christian' at the very least, if not some further scraps of their gospel. Identifying James as the brother of Jesus "who was called Christ" didn't add any new claim or any new information about Jesus, just provided a simple and neutral identification of James. By contrast, imagining that Josephus took it upon himself to confer that title upon a Jewish high priest with no further explanation or qualification really is about as far-fetched as it gets.

[Goat]

I think you mean Jesus (ben Damneus) became a christ? Pretty much the only view of the passage more strained than baseless speculation of a Christ-free original is the view that Josephus introduced this messianically-charged term 'Christ' on just this one (undisputed) occasion, not as a passing clarification for readers in Rome who might have heard of the Christian sect, but out of the blue as some kind of confusing and unexplained title or nickname for one of the most obscure among many high priests... labelled as such before he even became high priest!

Well, since a 'christ' includes being a high priest.. why yes. The thing is, you have to remember Josephus got out of being executed by Vespasian when he got captured by claiming the Vespasian is the promised Messiah of the Jews. He would not be risking his life by insinuating another person was the promised Messiah other than Vespasian. That leads to the conclusion it's either Jesus ben Damneus, or an interpolation.

Yes, he positioned Vespasian as Messiah, which makes it all the more ridiculous - even beyond the reason above - to imagine that he took it upon himself to proclaim a prominent Jewish priest to be Christ!

In the case of Jesus of Nazareth, Josephus obviously didn't take it upon himself to confer that title, it was one which many or likely most of his readers would have already heard about in the name 'Christian' at the very least, if not some further scraps of their gospel. Identifying James as the brother of Jesus "who was called Christ" didn't add any new claim or any new information about Jesus, just provided a simple and neutral identification of James. By contrast, imagining that Josephus took it upon himself to confer that title upon a Jewish high priest with no further explanation or qualification really is about as far-fetched as it gets.

Except, there is a difference between a messiah, and THE messiah. The high priest and the king both are christs, but preform different functions. Josephus made Vespasian out to the The King Messiah, but Jesus Ben Damneus was a high priest messiah Similar word, different role.

[Mithrae]

Yes, he positioned Vespasian as Messiah, which makes it all the more ridiculous - even beyond the reason above - to imagine that he took it upon himself to proclaim a prominent Jewish priest to be Christ!

In the case of Jesus of Nazareth, Josephus obviously didn't take it upon himself to confer that title, it was one which many or likely most of his readers would have already heard about in the name 'Christian' at the very least, if not some further scraps of their gospel. Identifying James as the brother of Jesus "who was called Christ" didn't add any new claim or any new information about Jesus, just provided a simple and neutral identification of James. By contrast, imagining that Josephus took it upon himself to confer that title upon a Jewish high priest with no further explanation or qualification really is about as far-fetched as it gets.

Except, there is a difference between a messiah, and THE messiah. The high priest and the king both are christs, but preform different functions. Josephus made Vespasian out to the The King Messiah, but Jesus Ben Damneus was a high priest messiah Similar word, different role.

You're not addressing either part of the problem, just fudging the details to make it seem like a little less of a problem. Firstly Josephus had every reason not to confer that title on another person, whether 'a messiah' or 'the messiah,' and thus he never does confer it on anyone else throughout all his works; this Jesus fellow is the sole exception, so we have every reason to believe that Josephus didn't confer the title on him, that he was already known to readers as the one called Christ. Secondly even if against all reason he did want to uniquely honour a random one-year high priest like ben Damneus with that title, he then had every reason to avoid any confusion on the subject by explaining that all high priests were 'christs' and why ben Damneus in particular was known by that designation (which again in the case of JC would be either unnecessary if there was a milder original version of the Testimonium, or else a subject best left as a mere allusion for those who'd already heard of him).

[Goat]

Yes, he positioned Vespasian as Messiah, which makes it all the more ridiculous - even beyond the reason above - to imagine that he took it upon himself to proclaim a prominent Jewish priest to be Christ!

In the case of Jesus of Nazareth, Josephus obviously didn't take it upon himself to confer that title, it was one which many or likely most of his readers would have already heard about in the name 'Christian' at the very least, if not some further scraps of their gospel. Identifying James as the brother of Jesus "who was called Christ" didn't add any new claim or any new information about Jesus, just provided a simple and neutral identification of James. By contrast, imagining that Josephus took it upon himself to confer that title upon a Jewish high priest with no further explanation or qualification really is about as far-fetched as it gets.

Except, there is a difference between a messiah, and THE messiah. The high priest and the king both are christs, but preform different functions. Josephus made Vespasian out to the The King Messiah, but Jesus Ben Damneus was a high priest messiah Similar word, different role.

You're not addressing either part of the problem, just fudging the details to make it seem like a little less of a problem. Firstly Josephus had every reason not to confer that title on another person, whether 'a messiah' or 'the messiah,' and thus he never does confer it on anyone else throughout all his works; this Jesus fellow is the sole exception, so we have every reason to believe that Josephus didn't confer the title on him, that he was already known to readers as the one called Christ. Secondly even if against all reason he did want to uniquely honour a random one-year high priest like ben Damneus with that title, he then had every reason to avoid any confusion on the subject by explaining that all high priests were 'christs' and why ben Damneus in particular was known by that designation (which again in the case of JC would be either unnecessary if there was a milder original version of the Testimonium, or else a subject best left as a mere allusion for those who'd already heard of him).

That would make the 'one called Christ' being a total insertion more likely, but the other can not be eliminated totally either.

[Mithrae]

That would make the 'one called Christ' being a total insertion more likely, but the other can not be eliminated totally either.

Pretty much anything besides the conclusion which is most obvious, most parsimonious and supported by some actual evidence, right?