Lots of problems here, so let's get crackin'.
so Mark, who is supposed to be recording the prophesies of Jesus, is actually writing after the fact. and he just happens to have this history book in his hip pocket that contains all these details from the war the Jesus is prophesying. Jesus is predicting the encircling of Jerusalem... just like the history book describes. Jesus is predicting the leveling of the temple... just like the history book describes. but we're supposed to believe Mark never peeked/copied from the history book.
Now you're
begging the question. You're starting off with a whole set of assumptions and creating a situation where there are no steps toward reaching the conclusion because the conclusion is simply a restatement of the premise. In order to make the case here, you will need to demonstrate sound probability judgments for the following:
1. That Mark postdates Josephus' War of the Jews.
2. That the chronologically posterior Mark is aware of War of the Jews
3. That the chronologically posterior Mark has access to War of the Jews
(#1 and #2 are necessary but not sufficient conditions to enable #3)
4. Finally, that the chronologically posterior Mark is utilizing War of the Jews for his narrative.
Do we know that there were other sources? Again, there had to be if Josephus himself wasn't making up his account of the war. Besides the primary material, we know that at least one other historian, Justus of Tiberias, a fellow Jew and rival of Josephus, wrote a secondary narrative of the revolt.
The biggest issue here is #1. As I said, the consensus dates for Mark place the gospel
before Josephus'
War of the Jews. But perhaps a pair of evidenced claims could swing the probability away from the consensus, which you imply:
A. Mark demonstrates some detailed knowledge of the war that is reflected in the chapter 13 discourse and, barring some basis for believing in Jesus' supernatural predictive abilities, demands a post-70 date.
B. Mark narrates that detailed knowledge with particular stylistic clues that indicate dependence upon Josephus'
War of the Jews.
A* Analysis: It is not beyond dispute that the Markan "Little Apocalypse" evinces a more than passing acquaintance with the events of 66-70, or that it is even referring to the war. The discourse isn't actually all that descriptive, and in one instance you have misattributed a feature (the "circling with armies" bit is a Lukan verse). To point to two examples from atheist New Testament scholars, James Crossley dates Mark to the period of the Caligula Crisis (ca. 40!) and believes that Mark 13 address the challenges of that period. On the other hand, Robert M. Price believes that Mark 13 is super-late and is alluding to the Bar Kokhba revolt of 132-135! And, as Craig Keener points out, pre-70 Jewish predictions of the Temple's destruction are not unknown, so we can't discount the real possibility that Mark 13 is an edited version built around the kernel of real utterances by the historical Jesus.
B* Analysis: This is the part that needs to be argued in detail. Again, it will not even be enough to say that Mark alludes to events that are also recorded in Josephus. This is a basic principle of source criticism, which is a very tricky enterprise. Just read about all the variant theories of source relationship among the Gospels: the Two-Source Hypothesis, the Farrer-Goulder-Goldacre Hypothesis, the Griesbach Hypothesis, the Johannine Priority Hypothesis. Did Luke and Matthew both use Mark and Q while never knowing about each other? Was there no Q and Luke used Matthew? Was there no Q and Matthew used Luke? Is John familiar with any of the Synoptics or completely independent? Was there a pre-Markan Passion Narrative, or are all the other gospels reliant upon Mark? So, similarly, even granting A, on what grounds will it be decided that Mark is using Josephus and not, say, Justus of Tiberias, or other sources?
If Atwill really wants to build a sound, credible argument, then instead of publishing wacky books where he throws all his speculation down he should do the work of building his case through methodical testing of various premises. He should spend several months researching, for example, the potential evidence for Josephan influence on Mark, write a paper that dispassionately reviews the case, and submit it for peer review. Then it can be tested by the community of scholars and that particular claim can stand or fall on its own merits without being tied to the dead weight of a feverish-looking fantasy.
and remember, the history book Mark is using claims Cesar is real Messiah... completely undermining Judaism and this newly forming Christianity thing.
i. No, Josephus did not "completely undermine" Judaism. There were a range of messianic beliefs, and non-beliefs, in 1st century Judaism just as there are today. Most laypersons think there was this univocal tradition about
THE MESSIAH but it simply isn't true. Presumably, most or all Sadducees, who didn't think that any writings outside the Torah were Scripture, had no messianic expectations. And there was a range of speculation about messianic/eschatological prophet/king/warrior figures based on various scripture texts. Say, for example, the theory of two eschatological messianic figures, one who suffers defeat and one who is victorious. Besides, "messiah" meant simply "anointed" and could be a title given to all sorts of persons past, present, and future. And there is already precedent in the Old Testament for a pagan ruler being named a "messiah." As
livius.org correctly puts it:
Josephus' messianology may seem hypocritical, but it is not. In his view, the Zealots had ruined Judaea, and God had sent the Roman general to punish His chosen people as a second Pompey. In the past, God had sent the Jews into exile in Egypt and
Babylon; and he had used Philistine,
Assyrian and
Seleucid armies to punish his chosen people. This punishment could be considered a way to restore the true Israel. To call a foreigner a Messiah was nothing new: the Persian king
Cyrus the Great had already been considered the Messiah, as we saw
above.
ii. Furthermore, even if Mark drew upon Josephus, that doesn't mean he did so to
endorse Josephus' perspectives. Just as we do today, ancient writers routinely adapted, alluded to, quoted, or parodied sources they disagreed with in order to
invert their claims. Mark was religious, but there's no reason to think he was superstitious and was in some way afraid to deal with Josephus because Josephus was wrong.
this is like a Rabbi using Mein Kampf as secret source material to record the history of the Jews in Europe.
Certainly not. Josephus wasn't advocating the destruction of his people, or arguing that they were the source of all the empire's ills, or whatnot. What he advocated against was the zealotry that led to the war, which he consistently argued in his writings was a blight upon Judaism. A bug, not a feature. Josephus wrote his
Antiquities and
Against Apion as apologetics precisely to defend Judaism as an ancient and wise religion.