mlinssen wrote: ↑Sun Aug 08, 2021 9:52 pm
If I look at what you quote, the point that Allen makes seems to be that Eusebius got inspired by a genuine TF, and used the phrase found there in his own work.
Yes, that is what he is claiming. But he isn't just presenting it as a possibility. He is claiming to have presented decisive evidence in favor of the direction Testimonium => Eusebius and against the direction Eusebius => Testimonium.
What he says seems to have nothing to do with anything in the reverse direction, such as e.g. Eusebius writing something in one of Josephus' works:
...Eusebius would have used for Jesus, and therefore it looks like he inherited this from the original TF.
He is claiming that Whealey has presented decisive evidence against my argument (which he does not recapitulate) regarding παραδόξων ἔργων ποιητής: "
Olson’s argument that it was made up by Eusebius is refuted by Whealey’s investigation of how Eusebius used this description elsewhere"
That is hardly "nothing to do with the reverse direction." He is claiming to have demonstrated the reverse direction is implausible.
If you disagree with my construal of Allen's use of Whealey, perhaps you could lay out the steps of the argument yourself, including what Whealey is claiming and how Allen grounds his claim to have refuted me with it.
You say, on the other hand:
Eusebius would not have used the term παραδόξων ἔργων ποιητής to describe Jesus if he wrote the Testimonium Flavianum
There are two quite different things there
No, they are not.
Allen: this [ παραδόξων ἔργων ποιητής ] is not a preferred description Eusebius would have used for Jesus, and therefore it looks like he inherited this from the original TF.
Allen is saying that he has shown that this is not a preferred description Eusebius would have used for Jesus,
and thus unlikely to be part of a Eusebian composition., therefore it looks like he inherited this from the original TF. This is the basis for his claim that Whealey has refuted my argument. My paraphrase differs in wording, of course, as paraphrases tend to do (otherwise they would be quotations). But it is an accurate restatement of Allen's claim.
I point out to the contrary that the fact that Eusebius uses the term παραδόξων ἔργων ποιητής (which is never found in our manuscripts of Josephus outside the Testimonium) repeatedly to describe Jesus is a much better indicator of whether it is a preferred description Eusebius would have used of Jesus than is Whealey's conjecture that Eusebius would have used some special language to describe Jesus that he does not use of anyone else (except perhaps God, who is arguably not else), especially since Whealey then has to contend that Eusebius borrowed the term παραδόξων ἔργων ποιητήςis from the Testimonium and used it to describe Jesus elsewhere in his works.
This is not to say that Allen's claim is impossible (that is rarely or never possible to demonstrate in such arguments) only that I have the stronger case.
Best,
Ken