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Robert said

Steefen said

Gaslight someone else. You are stalling. Moving on. …

63. There was, in those times, Jesus, a wise man, if really it is right to call him a man. [next sentence] He was the doer of miraculous works and the teacher of men who gladly hear things that are true.

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Steefen, did you happen to notice that this is an English translation of a Latin translation of the Testimonium? But even in the Latin one sees the postpositive einem corresponding to the postpositive Greek γάρ indicating the necessary link to the preceding. Note what Meagan Freeze says here: 

Many particles in Latin and Greek have no semantic implication, but exist solely to separate thoughts and phrases within a very complicated sentence structure or to provide an untranslatable emphasis. I have done my best not to include these colorless conjunctions, and to separate clauses in order to avoid losing the essence of the translation within Latin’s complex sentence structure. … enim was omitted in translation to avoid confusion of the English word “for” (a looser word for “because”). 

Trying to explain to you some of the complexities of Greek and Latin sentence structure is neither gaslighting nor stalling, for* as I explained above, one must first understand the Testimonium before one can attempt to explain how the following passages may be related to the Testimonium and while I only have a limited time available to try and help you here, I will indeed get to the following material in due course.

*See what I did there?

  

Robert
So why does the text say it might not be proper to refer to Jesus as a man?

Here we must look at the whole sentence. The following dependent clause, which you’ve omitted above, is inextricably linked to the prior clause: … εἴγε ἄνδρα αὐτὸν λέγειν χρή· ἦν γὰρ παραδόξων ἔργων ποιητής … if it is proper to call him a man, for he was a doer of incredible works … The reservation about it perhaps not being appropriate to refer to Jesus as a man is because of his working of miracles. This is typically thought to be a later addition at least in part by a Christian scribe who did not like Josephus referring to Jesus merely as a man.

Steve Campbell, Author of Historical Accuracy
People who exist do not have reservations from others about that person lawfully being called a man.
Robert, if you want to throw away Josephus’ word choice “lawfully”, not my word choice, an explanation would be in order.
Lawfully does imply citizenship.
The text does not read, “if it be correct to call him a man.” The text shows a more specific term than correct/accurate/right, the text shows “lawful” and that would be according to governing bodies.

The text in my book uses the Whiston: “a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer.”
Jesus did not exist as a unique, biological, human being either because 1) he was angel, 2) he was a fiction, 3) he forgave sin and divine forgiveness only comes from God according to Jesus’ opponents.

The priority of topicality in this discussion is

The person in Passage #1 is unquestionably Jesus, son of a god, sacrificed his life.
Passage #2 is about a man whose name brings up in Roman History, a man who sacrificed his life. The man in Passage 2 masqueraded as a son of god to exploit a pious woman. So, we have a man, if it be lawful to call him a son of god. Passage 1 he might not be a man. Passage 2 he might not be divine (son of a god). He might not be divine because he is only a masquerade of a son of a god. Passage 1 he might not be a man because he is only a masquerade of a man.

Passage 1 masquerade of a man to exploit the pious.
Passage 2 masquerade of a son of god to exploit the pious.
Passage 3 request for money for Jerusalem is a masquerade for religious pretenders to get a pious woman to give the masquerader money.

Jesus is not legit.
Decius Mundus (sacrificed for the world) masquerading as a son of god asking for sex is not legit.
Paul figure asking a woman for money for Jerusalem  is not legit.

Jesus and Paul are users of religion for illegitimate (not lawful) purposes.

Robert
I did not throw away Josephus’ word choice, Steefen. As I’ve already tried to tell you, the original language of the Testimonium is Greek and the Greek term used does not really indicate a legal concern, let alone a legal concern about citizenship. Scholars discuss a text in the original language, not in translation. Any translation, especially a colloquial translation such as Whiston’s, should not be relied upon too precisely as there are a variety of philosophies used to render a translation readable for a nonscholarly audience.

Just compare the English translation by Louis Feldman, which you’ve already provided: “… if indeed one ought to call him a man …” This is a more literal translation of the Greek.

Steefen

= = =

63. There was, in those times, Jesus, a wise man, if really it is right
    to call him a man. [next sentence] He was the doer of miraculous works and the
    teacher of men who gladly hear things that are true.

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= = =

I provided the above.
When I searched the above for Feldman, it was not found.

I do see:

Bibliography

Levenson, David R. and Thomas R. Martin.
“The Latin Translations of Josephus on Jesus, John the Baptist, and
James: Critical Texts of the Latin Translation of the
Antiquities and Rufinus’

Translation of Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History Based on Manuscripts and Early
Printed Traditions.” Journal for the Study of Judaism 46 (2014): 1-76.

What I provided above seems to come from Meagan Freeze who wrote:

The advanced seminar from which this translation arose focused on the translation of Josephus’ works from Ancient Greek to Latin [Cassiodorus, Levenson and Martin].

Meagan translated the Latin to English. Meagan completes sentence #1 with a period, then moves into “He was the doer of miraculous works.”

Robert
The Testimonium also says nothing about Jesus masquerading to exploit the pious.

Steefen
Then to what end for a historian to give an account of a man who may have been less than a real man or who may have been more than real man?

The TF does have reservations about Jesus being a man perhaps because of fabricated reports of him doing miraculous works, fabricated to exploit the pious.

Readers of Antiquities,

I have no proof Jesus existed.

I have no proof Jesus was a doer of miraculous works.

I did not even write those sentences.

Someone wants you to hold Jesus in religious high esteem. Your piety is being exploited

– Josephus

Robert
you yourself provided the Feldman translation in Post #300

Steefen
You moved the discussion away from that faulty punctuation.

Yes, I see it is from Feldman who was supposed to be highly respected.

Robert said
I’ve merely tried to explain the Greek syntax you. If you look at the modern punctuation in a Greek text of the Antiquities, you will see that I’m right about the syntax. It’s not at all controversial for anyone who knows Greek. 

  

No. Either the better translation is A or B, not, I am not going to choose one over the other and then when someone goes with A or B, you start all over again.
Either you provided instruction or your instruction does not make a difference one way (A) or the other (B) and in effect, you’re stalling the discussion.

Advance the discusssion!

Apparently Whiston got your gripe correct: Whiston did punctuate to lead readers to: Josephus had a reservation about Jesus being called a man because of the miraculous deeds which Feldman did not do.

“The TF does not say (fill in the blank).” Either readers are going to see the message beyond the exact words or they are going to miss the boat.

SAT Writing and Language Test

Writing Strategy will be a more difficult section to practice. It requires you to understand more abstract ideas like how the topic of a passage is best expressed through organization or structure. Understanding the distinctive features that make the organization effective, or the reasoning behind those features, is much more complicated than just memorizing a set of rules.

Josephus questions whether Jesus is an ordinary man. If Josephus had iron-clad proof that Jesus existed–if Josephus searched for the historical Jesus and found him, he would not have expressed the reservation that Jesus was an ordinary, unique, biological human being, conceived as ordinary human beings are conceived.

It high time you get off what passage 1 says specifically and get to 1) writing strategy, 2) interpretation, 3) conclusions, 4) how the passages work in chapter–the truth communicated via rhetorical technique.

Robert,
Your reply does not make any sense because you are evading, stalling, spoon feeding, and gaslighting.

Again, this discussion will not be stalled by Robert. As I said earlier, “moving on:”

Valentino Gasparini in his book Beyond Priesthood, published by De Gruyter 2017,
“Negotiating the body: Between religious investment and narratological strategies.
Paulina, Decius Mundus and the priests of Anubis”

and

Meagan Freeze in her article, “The Testimonium Flavianum: A Translation for the Modern Christian Tradition”

are excellent replacements for you.

In my book, I am using

Regarding Punctuation

“… a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer…” as opposed to:

“About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. [new sentence] For he was one who performed surprising deeds and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly.”

Regarding the Term “lawful”

Second, I can see that Meagan Freeze is not using “if it be lawful to call him a man” but is using “if really it is right to call him a man.”
Meagan in the Latin to English is using the new sentence translation:
“a wise man, if really it is right to call him a man. [new sentence] He was the doer of miraculous works.”

So, in the second edition of my book, I can explain “if it be lawful” is one translation, “if really it is right” is another translation.

Again, you have failed to provide analysis (your own or academic scholars) on the level of or on a higher level than Valentino Gasparini,
author of Individuals and Materials in the Greco-Roman cults of Isis: Agents, Images, and Practices: Proceedings of the VIth Internal Conference of Isis Studies
author of Beyond Priesthood: Religious Entrepreneurs and Innovators in the Roman Empire

So, you want to spoon feed your analysis, gaslight, stall, evade. If and when you are ready to get a passing grade on this discussion, catch up with the rest of us:

Valentino Gasparini, Joseph Atwill, Steve Campbell, and Josephus:

The three episodes are clearly related and needed to be understood as a single narrative block.