Eusebius is referencing a story, current in his day,
No, Eusebius says that about a year before he died, Maximinus II circulated the story. Eusebius provides no evidence for Max's big plans to circulate the thing to have survived Max. There is no evidence that the story was ever "current," not even in the portion of the empire where Max's writ ran.
That date for Pilate is disputed by some modern day scholars. Consequently, Eusebius viewing a pre 26 c. e. crucifion date as a forgery is mistaken.
What some modern scholars dispute surely doesn't entail that Eusebius was mistaken to recognize Max's Acts as a forgery. Eusebius hedged his first argument, the one about Pilate's inaugural date, with the disclaimer "if the testimony of Josephus is to be beleived" (
CH I.9.3). Some scholars think Josephus isn't to be believed. Fine, there are other arguments, and Eusebius offered some.
Pilate was in Judea prior to 26 c. e.
Could be, but this isn't much of an argument for it. There are any number of ways that even a genuine First Century document might confuse Tiberius's fourth consulship with his fifth (the one with Sejanus in 31 CE). What Max produced would be a hastily mass-produced hand copy; maybe some fraction of them had a one-word error, and Eusebius saw one of those. There are even more ways that, for all we know, Eusebius could misread a document we can't see and which he doesn't quote. Maybe he isn't quoting it because he's working from memory, and so that opens even more ways for confusion or error to seep in.
And of course, the document could simply be a low-rent fake.
That Acts of Pilate is dated late is irrelevant...... the gospels of Mark, Matthew and John do not rule out an earlier than gLuke crucifion story.
Obviously so. Paul managed to tell a crucifixion story with no mention of Pilate at all.
The chief problems with Max's Acts as evidence are that we have little indication of its actual content, just a few conclusory statements about it, from a single source who's not everybody's dream witness. There's hardly any
there there for a late date to relate to.