As you say, Jews were often their own most bitter antagonists. I think this may constitute a psychological phenomenon: the reformed smoker often being more offended by smoke than those who never lit up, for example. You are most certainly correct that the efforts of those Jews developed the most structured anti-Jewish polemics that the church had (based on the Talmud, at least), but the Talmud was banned even before its content was understood.

For the record, there’s a fabulous essay in Cultures of the Jews: A New History (ed. David Biale; New York: Schocken Books, 2002), entitled “Childbirth and Magic: Jewish Folklore and Material Culture” (671-722). The author, Shalom Sabar, argues that Jews played up to the reputation that they had for practising witchcraft and that if the Christians perceived Jewish texts to be dark and foreboding, that was because the Jews wanted them to be perceived in that manner. It’s an interesting idea, and was probably the cause of more book-burning than the references to Jesus and the testimony of converts.

As for the disciples not being dragged off to death, there are traditions of martyrdom concerning both Matthew and Thaddaeus (although not, to my knowledge, Luke), as well as others amongst the 70 apostles sent forth by Jesus (one of whom was also Thaddaeus). They were not necessarily slain by Jews (although Stephen was – cf: Acts 7), but the Babylonian Talmud is rarely concerned with history, as we think of it today.

I’ve seen more than one Christian writer incensed at the fact that Jewish texts mostly ignore Christianity: perhaps the “vain fantasising” is to be found among modern writers and not the ancient ones.