To be honest.. this has bugged me for my many years as a someone who has accepted the Christian view/ideal.

I've often wondered why there are not enough documents to mention such an extra-ordinary man called Jesus who did things which no man has ever done before.

BUT.. I am wondering if this is true then this excludes a God who actually created the world.. of you and I?

I Don't think this reading actually does much harm to the Christian camp right now concerning the belief of a God (but surely something that should be addressed) But I think the big problem is solving the Theistic view that there is a God who created all things which this reading doesn't go into.

I've been looking into this for myself.. and still continuing my studies... and still Theistic.

More on this later.  Tired and must go to bed.  Nighty night.

Here are the passages about Josephus and the TF and Tacitus:

The infamous "Testimonium Flavium" appears to have been inserted into the Antiquities about the time of the 4th century. A key proof for this comes from the fact that while early Christians cited Josephus, none of them ever cited the Testimonium, even in situations where they were striving to provide historical proof for Jesus (i.e. in debates with Jewish scholars):

Justin Martyr (circa C.E. 100-165) never once quoted the passage -- even in the face of charges that Christians had "invented some sort of Christ for themselves" and that they had accepted "a futile rumor" (Dialogue with Trypho 8; circa C.E. 135).
Clement of Alexandria (ca. 192) - familiar with the works of Josephus
Tertullian (ca. 193) - familiar with the works of Josephus
Origen (circa C.E. 185-254), who in his own writings relies extensively upon the works of Josephus, does not mention this passage or any other passage in Josephus that mentions Christ. Not even when he is in dialogue against Celsus' accusations!
Jerome (circa C.E. 347-420) cites Josephus 90 times, but never once cites the Testimonium.
(citation: Lost and Hostile Gospels, Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould)

Logic itself tells us that had Josephus written the Testimonium, he would have written more than 3 lines concerning the existence of the Jewish Messiah in a book dedicated to Jewish History! You can't mention the Jewish messiah in passing in a book dedicated to a history of Judaism. You might as well write a book called "The Solar System" without mentioning the sun, except in a footnote on page 474.

Remsberg writes on this point poignantly:

"Its brevity disproves its authenticity. Josephus' work is voluminous and exhaustive. It comprises twenty books. Whole pages are devoted to petty robbers and obscure seditious leaders. Nearly fourty chapters are devoted to the life of a single king. Yet this remarkable being, the greatest product of his race, a being of whom the prophets foretold ten thousand wonderful things, a being greater than any earthly king, is dismissed with a dozen lines."[11]
It's brevity in fact points to interpolation:

Richard Carrier writes:

"An expert on manuscripts would know the problem here: scrolls have a fixed length. Each book of a work usually had to be no larger than would fit on one scroll, and certainly it was problematic for a copyist to break the pattern and use more scrolls than his source text (it would throw off everything, and make consulting the work a nightmare for any reader). This fact argues in favor of interpolation. If the material came from Josephus, he could have written more about such a topic (surely, since as we now have it, it is a marvelous digression indeed to warrant so slight a coverage), and just ended the whole book sooner, thus creating no problem. But if the material was added by a later editor, there would have been very little space to work with: so the addition had to be short, short enough to prevent the whole book from exceeding a standard scroll's length. (The interpolation was perhaps made by the 4th century Christian librarian Eusebius: see Kirby's "The Testimonium Flavianum."[12]
Logic also provides us with yet another powerful clue as to the falsity of the Testimonium: Josephus lived and died a Jew, never converting to Christianity. Why would he call Jesus "the Jewish Messiah" in the text? Even a Christian apologist, normally at home with warping logic well past its breaking point, ought to find it difficult to reconcile the claim that Josephus had any substantial evidence of Jesus as the Messiah with the fact that he never converted to Christianity. How could Josephus have good evidence for the existence of a messiah, and yet, at the same time, die a Jew?

There's really only one way to salvage the Testimonium: to use Jeffery J. Lowder's argument that the Testimonium was radically altered by Christians, and that the original Josephus passage was a second hand reference to a purely human Jesus who, while worthy of a brief note, did not merit more than a few lines of text, let alone consideration as the Jewish Messiah. This would explain why Christians did not cite it until it was radically altered: because it was an actual refutation of the gospel claim of Jesus the Christ.

Lowder writes:

"There are many scholars who believe the original text contained an authentic reference to Jesus but was later embellished by Christian copyists. I have italicized the sections widely regarded as interpolations":
Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ, and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians so named from him are not extinct at this day.
Lowder states that this may explain why no early Christian cited the Testimonium: because it did nothing to support the existence of Jesus as Jesus the Christ.[13]

The two most plausible explanations for the Testimonium: that it is either entirely or partially a fraud, both create a serious problem for the Christian.

If the Testimonium is a complete fiction, it leaves the christian without any historical corroboration from Josephus.

If it is a tampered document, it shows that there is a non contemporary account of Jesus, one who may even meet one of the criteria mentioned in Mark (drawing crowds). But it indicates that Josephus did not consider this Jesus to be anything more than a revered teacher - literally noteworthy - but hardly the wonder worker of the book of Mark, a fact that embarrassed early Christians to the point that they 1) ignored the passage for centuries, even while citing Josephus elsewhere and 2) later saw fit to deceptively alter the passage.

It should also be noted that some argue that Antiquities section 20.9 makes an indirect reference to Jesus. This claim is examined here: http://www.inu.net/skeptic/gospels.html

There is good reason to believe that the reference to a "Jesus' here is actually a reference to Jesus, son of d--neus that has been tampered with by later Christians, and not an actual reference to 'Jesus, son of Joseph', although Origen does cite this passage as historical evidence for Jesus. And again, the same point remains: the idea that a historian would mention the Messiah in passing while discussing an issue of minor relevance (and not elsewhere) staggers reason itself.

[edit] Tacitus
Tacitus (ca. 56

Somehow I knew Carrier and Lowder would be behind this.  I assume you just copied and pasted from the page so now I know what the page said, right?

It would seem that I anticipated the matter quite directly if it is.  By citing someone like Tabor who definitely takes an emphatic liberal line I have insulated myself from the charge that my own position is partisan.  As Tabor points out, there is an Arabic version and this version also mentions Jesus.  As I mentioned, even if you threw out the TF altogether, there would still be the other passage I referenced and that one is contested by virtually no one.

So it is just bunk to deny that Josephus references Jesus.  

For the record, I personally don't believe the passage is a forgery or an interpolation at all.  However, as the above achieves all that is necessary I don't personally feel inclined to defend my view vigorously.

As for Tacitus, the link I provided anticipated the same material.  In fact, JP Holding is addressing Lowder and Carrier directly.

I would be careful in accepting what the Internet Infidels say on this matter uncritically.  As is frequently said in retort to their arguments, if we applied their groping methodology to everything else consistently we'd have to abandon everything we think we know about the past.  That is a heady price to pay.  Naturally, the Infidels have never had any inclination to apply their reasonings consistently.

As a final note, I am glad that they mentioned this:

However, the key point here is that Tacitus did in fact write a thorough history of the purported times of Jesus and his ministry, and while this work is lost to us, Tacitus never makes any cross reference to it during his discussion of christians and Nero nor at any other point in his surviving works.

It is important, I think, to remember that the passage that we do have from Tacitus is from a section that is not specifically covering the time frame and location of Jesus.  As such, it is a little absurd to demand that Tacitus treat the issue of Jesus with any kind of thoroughness.  It would be like demanding that the Encyclopedia treat the subject of Zebras in the G volume when as it happens the Z volume is lost.

Another quick thought since what you've provided relies so much on the absence of mention by a series of writers... the basic theory I have for this 'silence' is quite simple:  when these people were writing they never envisioned people would be so daft as to suppose that Jesus didn't even exist.  Even Eusebius wasn't trying to show that Jesus existed.

The whole question was whether or not Jesus was God, or the Messiah, etc, so naturally the material was geared in that direction.  One can suppose that if someone had said to Justin (for example) "But I deny Jesus even existed!" then he would have pursued the subject from that perspective.

Modern skeptics proceed on the notion that if I ask you to show me that you really own a car I should hold it against you if you fail to mention that you went to elementary school.

The sticking point for me is that writers that came immediately after Tacitus do not reference him at all, even when they are looking to support the Christ story. If there was anything in Tacitus that supported the Christ story, surely writers looking to support the Christ story, with very little documentation to go on, would have referenced these missing volumes before they went missing. Since they do not, one can draw the reasonable conclusion that Tacitus did not write extensively about Christ.

Of course one must ask why anyone looking to support the story of Christ (which presumably would be the first few generations of Christians) would consider Tacitus's work (as he was known for his anti-Jewish and anti-Christian bias) as being needed over more directly witnessed accounts like the Gospels. I think that goes into the point SJ made: they wouldn't think people were so utterly daft as to think the basic fact of Jesus Christ's existence would be questioned. I wouldn't expect an "extensive" writing to support Christ's story anyway as his claims of Messiah were hotly in dispute (and still are). It's the basic fact of Christ's existence that is being challanged, and as noted it's being treated as an offhanded fact by Tacitus in what works do still exist.

So it simply goes to show that those who claim Christ was never mentioned by Josephus or Tacitus are completely off their gourd. It's even more telling when the very fact that the existence of skeptics disputing that their references don't prove anything means they have to acknowledged Christ WAS mentioned by both sources in order for the dispute to even exist. Quite sad.