JW:
Evidence for this conclusion has recently been stoked in higher criticism circles by Dr. Richard Carrier:
The Testimonium Flavianum
who invokes possibly the second most foremost Eusebian critic Ken Olson and his foremost related article:
Olson A Eusebian Reading of the Testimonium Flavianum 2013
in offense of Eusebius.
While my own opinion of Eusebius (you say "Eusebias" I say "Eusebs") is that he was a lying, cheatin, no-good, low-down, double-dealing, double-Crossing Monssouri scum, for those who require more than just my say-so to convict him (like evidence), I have previously postured the following:
CIRCUMSTANTIAL
1) Discovery
1 - No evidence for the TF before Eusebius
- 1) General silence - expectation that if the
TF existed it would have been used due to its importance
to Christianity.
2) Specific silence - http://vridar.wordpress.com/2009/03/06/josephus/
ca.140 CE Justin Martyr
For the Cave, consider that Justin was a philosopher in
Rome and his interests were:
1) Jesus
2) 1st century Israel
3) Arguing with Pagan and Jewish philosophers
The related question should be:
Why wouldn't Justin be familiar with Josephus?
I also wonder if the Cave is even willing to concede that
extant Church Father writings prove the Fathers could
read and write. Maybe they just dictated, or maybe they
became blind or maybe they were temporarily sight-
impared while Josephus was in front of them.
ca.170 CE Theophilus - uses Josephus
ca.180 CE Irenaeus - uses Josephus
ca.190 CE Clement of Alexandria - uses Josephus
ca.200 CE Tertullian - uses Josephus
ca.200 CE Minucius Felix - uses Josephus
ca.210 CE Hippolytus - uses Josephus
ca.220 CE Sextus Julius Africanus - uses Josephus
ca.230 CE Origen - uses Josephus
ca.240 CE Cyprian
ca.270 CE Anatolius - uses Josephus
ca.290 CE Arnobius
ca.300 CE Methodius - uses Josephus
ca.300 CE Lactantius
Of the 14 Fathers here who show no awareness of the TF
10 show use of Josephus. Comically, Roger Pearse started this
list in order to demonstrate that the Fathers in general would
have no interest in Josephus and ends up demonstrating that
the conclusion he disputes is correct.
2) Familiarity - Parallels to Eusebius' own Adversus Hieroclem.
3) Language - The key phrases are generally Eusebian and not Josephan.
4) Context - The context of the TF is contrary to Josephus.
5) Manuscript - Relative uniformity of the TF post Eusebian.
6) Lack of any coherent argument for originality.
JW:
I'd like to point out in general that when there is a position that is generally thought of as being a problem for Christianity, there is no shortage of Christian Internet authors inspired by Motive & Opportunity attempting articles questioning the generally accepted problem, such as the ending of "Mark":
The End of The Word According to Gar. Was the Original Ending of "Mark" Lost?
Going the other way, Christianity generally thinks that Josephus is support for HJ so there is little Motive & Opportunity attempting articles questioning this support. Ken Olson has largely been the beneficiary of this lack of interest and his resulting articles are illustrative that the subject world is like a great big Peshutty waiting to get phoenucked.
One of his primary points in general is superior literary parallels between the TF and Eusebius than the TF and Josephus. In his latest effort he gives even more specific parallels between the TF and Eusebius to the point of simultaneously showing off/looking like he is not even trying. He goes beyond this though to demonstrating a complete parallel in context between the TF and Eusebius.
This parallel is in:
Eusebius of Caesarea: Demonstratio Evangelica. Tr. W.J. Ferrar (1920) -- Book 3
courtesy of our own Roger Pearse.
The offending verses:
Olson commentary:And here it will not be inappropriate for me to make use of the evidence of the Hebrew Josephus 76 as |143 well, who in the eighteenth chapter of The Archaeology of the Jews, in his record of the times of Pilate, mentions our Saviour in these words:
"And Jesus arises at that time, a wise man, if it is befitting to call him a man. For he was a doer of no common works, a teacher of men who reverence truth. And he gathered many of the Jewish and many of the Greek race. This was Christus; and when Pilate (c) condemned him to the Cross on the information of our rulers, his first followers did not cease to revere him. For he appeared to them the third day alive again, the divine prophets having foretold this, and very many other things about him. And from that time to this the tribe of the Christians has not failed." 77
JW:What Eusebius is seeking to show in Book III is that Jesus has not only a human nature, but a divine one as well. He goes about this by arguing that Jesus coming as Christ was foretold in prophecy, that he was not a deceiver but a teacher of true doctrines, that he performed superhuman feats, and that he did not perform these feats by sorcery. At the end of Book III, Eusebius concludes that a man who was not a sorcerer but a man of good character (as Porphyry himself allowed he was), yet could perform wonders beyond human ability,must necessarily have been superhuman in his nature.19
As an ostensibly outside witness to the fact that the man Jesus was not merely human in his nature but evidenced the things foretold of the Christ in prophecy, the Testimonium repre-sents an encapsulation of Eusebius argument. It therefore has its most plausible Sitz-im-Leben in the pagan-Christian controversies of the fourth century. This was the period in which the question of whether Jesus was merely a wise man or something more was being debated. The first half of the Testimonium seems to address precisely this issue.
Olson's argument is that ALL of the points of the TF are needed for Eusebius' surrounding conceptual argument. So good candidates for the relationship explanation are either that Eusebius outright edited or at least used a questionable source for Josephus here or tailored his entire lengthy related argument to one paragraph of Josephus that everyone would agree was not originally written by Josephus. Olson prefers the former.
Josephus
ErrancyWiki
