He appeared to them

Nishant Xavier over on OnePeterFive brings Josephus, the infamous 'Testimonium Flavianum'. Unlike most, he brings in the Patristic witness to same: Eusebius and Jerome among others. So, let's see where the TF stands in scholarship today.

I found "a note" in Italian, by fellow Guiseppe, Petrantoni. Some have argued that the TF depends on Luke. The fulfilment of prophecy is a Luke (and Justin) theme of the postResurrection appearances; not Ignatian. Petrantoni's philology notes that, for Michael the Syrian, Jesus "is seen" by his disciples. It's all phainein: ḥzy and ẓhr, for Semites. But as always, things happen in the passive voice:

it is one thing to say that Christ "appeared [aor. ἐφάνη from φαίνω, perf. ẓahara l-]", it is quite another to say that he did himself "was seen [Syr. etḥazey]" by his disciples, since the sensory experience is absolutely different. In the first case, the agent, Christ, seems to embody a vision, it is the same that presents itself in the presence of others; in the second, however, all verbal meaning is shifted to the disciples who they have the material experience of seeing, verifying, the presence of Christ among them since they are manifested as apparition, vision.

Petrantoni thinks Agapius' Arabic witness may translate Theophilus of Edessa Callirrhoë which Michael, later, twists. Petrantoni goes on that Theophilus' language is precise, in parallel with Matthew 1:20 and 2:13 on visions; and not on cameos in the flesh. For Josephus this was that bodiless daemon whom all three Christian narratives exist to deny. Theophilus, then, said ḥzy in the perfect. Given that Theophilus was wholly orthodox: this is what the man had read in his own base Syriac from Josephus, against interest.

That apparitional - dare I say, asomatic - reading rules out Luke and anything like Luke (John and Ignatius, the Epistula Apostulorum...). This follows more the 1 Cor 15 creed. Atkins notes in Doubt of the Apostles that the Prophets as superior over physical witness is common to second-century Christian apologetic, like Justin in the first Apology - although Justin will cite Luke's physical resurrection to Trypho. Petrantoni instead finds ἐφάνη in Mark 16:9.

Petrantoni thinks a docetist in the community of Mark's "Longer Ending" interpolated Josephus. An early Pauline would also be acceptable.

I think, though, to the degree docetists were the sort of Christians most integrated with Gentile society, whom Greek Christians like Ignatius had to confront (UPDATE 3/25/22 maybe not Luke yet); that these were the sources Josephus had in Rome. Also: didn't Josephus do his own Aramaic? at least for the War - Syriac exists for book VI, at minimum. Suppose the Syriac came from a preChristian Aramaic version - loose in Iraq mayhap. As Erasmus found of the Johannine Comma, any interpolation in some text of language A rarely would enter B's copies.

PESHITTA 7/14: consider Mark 14:64 in the normative Nestorian tradition. Jesus here asks, metḥazé, against the Greek phainetai which as mentioned should be ẓahara or maybe even a cognate of Arabic sh-b-h. No clue what the Paul of Tella / Ḥarqlean NT had here; nor am I privy to the Old Syriac much less Palaestinian. Anyhoo. This translation (which does not translate our Greek) has Jesus shift the experience to the observer.