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Originally Posted by judge Does you source deal with the questions I have put to Spin? If so in what way?

In most [Jews] there was a firm persuasion, that in the ancient records of their priests was contained a prediction of how at this very time the East was to grow powerful, and rulers, coming from Judaea, were to acquire universal empire.—Tacitus, Hist. 5,13.

There had spread over all the Orient an old and established belief, that it was fated at that time for men coming from Judaea to rule the world.—Suetonius, Vesp., 4.

Even the merely outward story of Christ can seem extremely strange, by no means to be explained by reference to Messianic scriptures. The idea that Christ's destiny can even be seen to conform to these Messianic texts is nothing but a hidebound lack of thought! (And how the New Testament is disparaged if its entire originality is already to be found in the Old!) If we were really to construct the destiny of the Messiah from the Messianic passages, it would look quite different from that of our Christ; for the latter involves the crucifixion, for instance, which cannot genuinely be found in them [If we were to take this seriously, we would have to make Plato a prophet of Christ. For Plato actually speaks of one who, without having done any wrong himself, gives the appearance of most manifest unrighteousness, in order to prove himself totally righteous. He is then put in chains, scourged, tortured, blinded, and, having endured all sufferings, is finally crucified (spitted): τελευαων παντα κακα παθον ανασχινδυλευθησεται Gorg. 58,13ff.; De Rep. 11, 65,66.]—for the Jews were expecting a triumphant Messiah, the very opposite of a suffering Messiah. You only need to peep into the Gospels to see that Christ's destiny is quite different from the Messianic expectations which are linked to him in these same Gospels, and by his own disciples! The entire Gospel of Matthew has the one and only purpose of showing how Christ's life conforms to the prophecies of Scripture; how different, therefore, how magnificent and wondrous is the life of Christ as presented to us by Matthew's Gospel! The evangelists believe in Christ the Messiah; no more than the critics do they notice that their Messiah Christ speaks about his Messiaship and his divine Sonship in a way totally unlike their Jewish national Messiah—which he never became. But what do the evangelists and the critics notice! The whole Jewish people observed that Jesus was not their Messiah, as do all Jews right up to the present day; the only ones who still fail to observe it are the critics. The critics will even find it foretold in the Messianic passages that the Messiah was predestined to have the kind of disciples who notice nothing; in the end, because of the amazing reliance they place on these texts, they will even find themselves there, clearly portrayed and predicted: after two thousand years these critics were predestined to come with their particular understanding, their particular inability to notice anything.—Brunner, Our Christ.