The film begins with the three wise men delivering their gifts to the messiah. However, they initially make a mistake and deliver the gifts to Brian. Then, once they realize their mistake, they retrieve their gifts and take them to the “glowing” manger scene. This prepares the viewer for the remainder of the movie where Brian will continue to be mistaken for the messiah. Brian never claims to be the messiah, but the Jewish people are searching so desperately for a messianic figure to appear that they’ll throw that label on anyone who diverges from typical first century Jewish culture. Though Brian never preaches a Gospel-like message, his message of independence goes against typical Jewish culture.
This film is continuously poking fun at Jewish and Roman cultures in first-century Palestine. It often makes fun of Jewish formalism and legalism and their idea that everything must follow strictly by the rules. This is represented in the scene where a man is sentenced to death by stoning because he said “Jehovah.” Even though he said it as a means of praise rather than insult, the Jewish priest and the crowd insisted that he must die because those are the rules. Their obsession with formalism is also shown in the crucifixion scene when the Jewish people are more concerned about being crucified next to a Samaritan than the fact that they are about to die.
Overall, this film invites the audience to consider the fact that Jesus of the Gospels may be a case of mistaken identity. The Jewish people were searching for a messiah everywhere so there was no way that Jesus was the only man believed to be the messiah in that time period. The final crucifixion scene demonstrates that crucifixion was extremely common and therefore so was martyrdom. Basically, it downplays the significance of crucifixion and consequently the message of Jesus and the Gospels. Whenever the film references the Gospel message, it seems to do the complete opposite. The point of this is to show that the Gospel message may not be completely accurate, and may actually be propaganda.
This film is continuously poking fun at Jewish and Roman cultures in first-century Palestine. It often makes fun of Jewish formalism and legalism and their idea that everything must follow strictly by the rules. This is represented in the scene where a man is sentenced to death by stoning because he said “Jehovah.” Even though he said it as a means of praise rather than insult, the Jewish priest and the crowd insisted that he must die because those are the rules. Their obsession with formalism is also shown in the crucifixion scene when the Jewish people are more concerned about being crucified next to a Samaritan than the fact that they are about to die.
Overall, this film invites the audience to consider the fact that Jesus of the Gospels may be a case of mistaken identity. The Jewish people were searching for a messiah everywhere so there was no way that Jesus was the only man believed to be the messiah in that time period. The final crucifixion scene demonstrates that crucifixion was extremely common and therefore so was martyrdom. Basically, it downplays the significance of crucifixion and consequently the message of Jesus and the Gospels. Whenever the film references the Gospel message, it seems to do the complete opposite. The point of this is to show that the Gospel message may not be completely accurate, and may actually be propaganda.
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