[source: Birth of Christianity, p. 

IMPERIAL ROME TOOK CHRISTIANITY FOR A GRIEVOUS SUPERSTITION
Three pagan Roman authors, writing within a few years of one another at the 
start of the second century, agreed completely and emphatically on the nature of 
the Christian religion...They concurred that Christianity was a "superstition" 
and differed only  on the most appropriate negative adjectives to accompany that 
pejorative term. There are considered their judgments...For those first pagan 
outsiders, Christianity was, cumulatively, a depraved, excessive, contagious, 
pernicious, new, and mischevious superstition. Religion, to put it bluntly, was 
what aristocratic Romans did, superstition was what others did - especially 
those unseemly types from regions east of Italy.
[source: Birth of Christianity, p. 3]

CHRISTIANITY REGARDED AS A CULT-LIKE ORGANIZATION, MEMBERS WERE GUILTY BUT COULD REPENT
It implicitly responds that the very name of Christian is itself a crime, like 
being a member of an illegal group. But, on the other hand, these "criminals" 
are not to be searched out. Trajan's second reply is a direct response to 
Pliny's second question. Christians are to be pardoned if they repent and 
recant. Finally, Trajan gives no reply to Pliny's first question, instead 
implicitly rebuking him for moving at all on anonymous accusations. 
Christianity, clearly, is a very special sort of crime! That imperial reply 
established three principles that would guide 150 years of official imperial 
policy toward Christianity. Do not go searchig for Christians. Do not punish 
them of they repent. Do not accept anonymous accusations. When, in the middle of 
the third century, that policy was changed to investigative persecution, it was 
far too late for Roman paganism.
[source: Birth of Christianity, pp. 6-7]

CROSSAN CONDUCTING HISTORIAL INTELLIGENCE WORK
They give, in other words, two versions of events in the Jewish homeland during 
most of that first century. Absences, changes, and divergences between those 
twin accounts must always be assessed carefully to understand bias, prejudice, 
and purpose.
[source: Birth of Christianity, p. 11]

MORE INTELLIGENCE ANALYSIS FROM CROSSAN
The juxtaposition of Pilate disturbances and Rome disturbances, of those 
criminal fraud stories and the Jesus story, gives the latter a rather negative 
context. Was that Josephus's purpose and design? Is the story of Jesus to be 
judged by association with the two incidents that follow it? Jesus, the Isis 
priests, and the Jewish "scoundrel" may well have been, for Josephus, three 
warnings of how public disturbances and official punishments may be caused by 
individual religious malfeasance. Third, text. Even if the context has been 
deliberately arranged to cast some negative reflection on the Jesus story, the 
text itself, in Jewish Antiquities 18:63-64, is quite carefully neutral.
[source: Birth of Christianity, p. 12]

CROSSAN EXAMINES LANGUAGE IN HIS ANALYSIS
Jesus' wisdom was manifest, for Josephus, in both deeds and words, in both actions 
and teachings. The sequence of that duality, with actions first, is proabably worth 
noting. Josephus describes Jesus' actions with a Greek phrase translated here as 
"surprising feats".
[source: Birth of Christianity, pp. 12-13]

CROSSAN CONSIDERS OTHER WAYS THE WRITER HAS USED A WORD OR PHRASE
[source: Birth of Christianity, p. 13]