Java doesn't have obscure syntax - part of that is the language itself, part of that is the fact that it explicitly doesn't support operator overloading and that prevents people from making incomprehensible DSLs ( Scala's SBT, anyone? )
On the other hand, in terms of "readable" I still think calling Java readable assumes a familiarity with C style syntax. I think if you took someone that never read or wrote code before and showed them 100 line, idiomatic programs in Java, Javascript, Python, Ruby, PHP, Perl, Lisp, Haskell, C, Fortran, COBOL, Basic, and a few other languages that Java would not top the list for readability. My guess is that the winners would be Basic, COBOL, and Python.
One of the biggest reasons C++ became popular was that it was a relatively small step away, in terms of syntax, from C. I really think Java became popular mostly because the syntax is a small step away from C++.