Crucifixion's A Doddle: The Passion of Monty Python

By Julian Doyle

As Julian Doyle, the editor of Monty Python's film Life of Brian, watched the comedy teams attempt to be crucified, for the end of their film, he began to notice something was seriously wrong. Checking for images of the crucified Jesus, he found none. The first appearing nearly 400 years after the event. But, not only were there no images of Jesus but not one of anyone else being crucified. And it was not until the first image appeared in 420 AD that the vertical cross replaced the original symbol for Christianity, which was the X shaped Chi-Rho. Our well-known image was clearly an invention by commissioned artists well after the actual event. And that is what Doyle had spotted on the set of Life of Brian, that crucifixion could not, and does not, work, and in this book he describes why.

With further research, he began to notice contradictions within the Biblical text about the death of Jesus, leading him to the shocking possibility that maybe Pontius Pilate did not crucify Jesus after all as all the evidence seemed to suggest that Jesus lived for a decade after Pilate left Judea. Now in this true life detective story Doyle astonishingly uncovers who was the real killer of Jesus Christ.

Behind his jovial and playful style, Julian Doyle conceals a rapier wit with which he cuts and slashes his way through the whole of the crucifixion story with expert analysis, bringing clarity to the Gospel and revealing for the first time a way of understanding what may be the true story of Jesus.

Leading Python Terry Jones has described Doyle as a polymath, and it is this extraordinary range of knowledge - coupled with a curious and accessible approach - that has helped lead him to his discoveries. Remarkable, challenging and possibly very naughty indeed, Crucifixion's a Doddle is a must-read for Python fans as well as anyone with an inquiring mind.In Crucifixion's a Doddle, the irrepressible Doyle uses evidence to form his persuasive case; such as the fact that no image of Jesus on a cross appeared for 300 years after the event was alleged to have taken place, and that the images that did appear were likely an invention by commissioned artists at the time to explore the likelihood that the story told for centuries may not be as accurate as previously thought.

Behind his jovial and playful style, Julian Doyle conceals a rapier wit with which he cuts and slashes his way through the whole of the crucifixion story with expert analysis, bringing clarity to the Gospel and revealing for the first time a way of understanding what may be the true story of Jesus. Leading Python Terry Jones has described Doyle as a polymath, and it is this extraordinary range of knowledge - coupled with a curious and accessible approach - that has helped lead him to his discoveries. Remarkable, challenging and possibly very naughty indeed, Crucifixion's a Doddle is a must-read for Python fans as well as anyone with an inquiring mind."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Clink Street Publishing
• Release date: Nov 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9781911110392

Book preview

Introduction

This is a detective story stimulated by some extraordinary happenings on the film, Monty Python’s Life of Brian. The crime is the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, for which there were four original witnesses, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. We need to re-examine their evidence, but then we will introduce you to a surprise witness for his crucial evidence, which will blow away the veil of centuries of fog from our eyes. After cross-examination, we will sum up the evidence to help you, the jury, come to a verdict on who is the guilty party in this infamous crime. The baffling starting point is the questions raised by the end of the film Life of Brian.

Look carefully at the following frame from the film. How does it completely subvert the biblical story?

How does this make every image of the Jesus crucifixion wrong? And how did the cross, become a symbol for Christianity, when for centuries it was never so? What are the true details of those seven days that began with Jesus triumphantly entering Jerusalem on a donkey; expelling the money-changers from the Temple and on to a Last Supper; arrest in Gethsemane; trial; crucifixion and resurrection?

Jesus was an Israelite, so in case you do not know the origin, or the beliefs of these people who refused to be ruled by the Roman Empire, we will give a quick summary in this introduction, as it is crucial to the events that were discovered during the making of the film. It also explains the strange way the Romans were able to conquer Israel, a way that is highlighted in Monty Python’s Life of Brian, which, without doubt, is the most accurate biblical film ever made.

The basic biblical story of the Israelites is that Abraham and his family left Mesopotamia as nomads and travelled to Canaan. Abraham brought with him the legends of Mesopotamia, the story of Adam and Eve in Eden; of Noah and the flood; of Enoch and Methuselah; in fact, all the first ten verses of the book of Genesis come from Mesopotamia. Okay that is a broad statement, so let me try and back it up by telling you exactly where the Garden of Eden is.

Yes, you heard that right. I know, you thought the Garden of Eden was a mythical place, but just to show you that the Old Testament is actually describing real events (obviously coloured by God) we will identify the location of Paradise. In reality it is the place of origin of the Mesopotamians, and all the information needed to locate paradise is actually in their beliefs, and reiterated in the Bible.

‘Now a river flowed from Eden to water the garden, and from there it divides into four headstreams. The name of the first is Pishon; it runs through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. The name of the second river is Gihon; it runs through the entire land of Cush. The name of the third river is Hidderkel; it runs along the east side of Assyria. The fourth river is the Perath.’ (Genesis 2)

So Eden is the source of four rivers, the names of two of which are well known – in modern Bibles the Perath is named as the Euphrates and the Hidderkkel, the Tigris. The other two are unknown and many have suggested they are the Nile, the Ganges or even the Amazon, but it is quite clear that these do not have their source anywhere near the Tigris and Euphrates.

The following map shows Mesopotamia, which means the land between rivers and above that is the source of both rivers.

You can see the Tigris and the Euphrates rise to the north-west near each other. If there are two other rivers originating to the right of the source of the Tigris and Euphrates – the north-east – they would probably empty into the Caspian Sea. Yes, you guessed it; there are two such rivers, the Araxes and the Uizhun. Could one be the Gihon? Well the Persians actually used the old and new names together, Gihon –Aras and, extraordinarily, you will find the name Gihon–Aras in Victorian biblical dictionaries, but it seems to have been forgotten. That leaves us with the Uizhun, but although we cannot link the names, its position suggests it is the Pishon. From this, we can not only identify Eden, but I can even pinpoint the garden itself, which is stated to be in the east of Eden. It is so obvious that I am kicking myself that I did not work it out first, but credit goes to an amateur Reginald Walker. Walker unfortunately died in 1989, but his notes found their way to the Egyptologist, David Rohl, who explored the area and, in his book Legend, gives us the facts. What facts you may ask? Well, the details in the Bible are quite specific. Not just the source of four rivers but:

1. ‘And God planted a garden eastward in Eden and there he put the man whom he had formed.

2. Now a river flowed from Eden to water the garden.

3. He placed cherubim at the east of the Garden of Eden and a flaming sword.

4. Then Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and dwelt in the land of Nod in the east of Eden.’

The probable origin of the word Eden is the Babylonian Edinu, meaning plain. So God placed the garden paradise east of a plain. In the centre of the area where the rivers originate is a high valley bounded on three sides by snow-capped mountains. The word Paradise comes from an old Persian word, which means, ‘walled garden’. Along the valley floor runs the river Adji Chay – the river flowed from Eden to water the garden. So Adji Chay does not originate in the Garden, but runs into it from Eden, the plain. The Adji Chay valley has an older name, the ‘Meidan’ valley. Would you believe this is a Persian word, which also means walled garden? So the river Adji Chay flows from its origin into the east of Eden, and that is where the garden is.

Now we need to follow Cain when he was ejected from Eden to the land of Nod. Travelling in an easterly direction out of Eden you head over a mountain pass and end in an area called Upper and Lower Noqdi. There are villages there called Noqdi and Noadi. The ‘i’ at the end denotes ‘belonging’ as in ‘Iraqi’, a person from Iraq. So I think we have our land of Nod.

Finally, near here, also in the east of Eden, we need to find the guardians God placed there.

‘He placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden, cherubim and a flaming sword flashing.’

Located at the head of the mountain pass, protecting the easterly entrance to Eden, is an old town called Heruabad. Kheru-abad means settlement of the Kheru people. If you look in a dictionary you will find, Kerubim is an alternative spelling for Cherubim. And it is known that the earliest smelting of copper and tin to make bronze (swords) occurred around this area. In fact, the Bible says it was Tubal Cain who was the ancestor of all who worked metal (Genesis 4.22). There is just one later reference in the Bible to Eden.

‘…the people of Eden who were in Tel Assar.’ (2 Kings 19)

Encyclopaedias tell us Tel-assar was a place inhabited by ‘the people of Eden’, which is in northern Mesopotamia, just outside Eden from which they were expelled.

David Rohl’s book gives you more details, but I think it is pretty clear that the Mesopotamian legend is describing a real place of origin, and that Eden is in the Adji Chay valley in northern Iran. The central town is Tabriz and to the left on a map is the fertile area of the Garden of Eden. Interestingly Noah’s Ark is said, in the Koran, to have ended up on Mount Judi, just south of Eden, which suggests that if an earlier catastrophe had occurred then Adam and Eve would have been in the high plain, the perfect place to survive it and repopulate the earth, or more likely, Mesopotamia, as well as introduce us to the apple of knowledge.

A strange error in all paintings of Adam and Eve

I have spent time on the Adam and Eve story to explain why I have a strong belief that myths and legends, whether remembered in tribal stories or written down, are important to investigate, as they often have real information. The Trojan wars were considered myths till they found Troy. Jason and the Golden Fleece is a real journey to the eastern coast of the Black Sea, where there is a gold-bearing river. To extract the gold, a sheep’s fleece was held in the riverbed to trap the heavy metals.

The other thing I want to point out is that many legends remember catastrophic natural events.

‘I suddenly saw that directly to the north, the sky split in two and fire appeared high and wide over the forest. The split in the sky grew larger, and the entire northern side was covered with fire. At that moment I became so hot that I couldn’t bear it, as if my shirt was on fire; from the northern side, where the fire was, came strong heat. I wanted to tear off my shirt and throw it down, but then the sky shut closed, and a strong thump sounded, and I was thrown a few metres. I lost my senses for a moment. After that such noise came, as if rocks were falling, the earth shook, and when I was on the ground, I pressed my head down fearing rocks would smash it. When the sky opened up, hot wind raced over the land, which left traces in the ground like pathways.’

This may sound like something out of the Book of Ezekiel but it is a description by a local native of the Tunguska comet, which hit at 7.15am on 30 June 1908, luckily in an extremely remote area of Siberia, so remote that scientists did not get there to investigate till 1921, after the Great War. The aerial explosion and resulting shock wave produced fluctuations in atmospheric pressure strong enough to be detected in Britain. Over the next few days, night skies in Asia and Europe were aglow. Local Shanyagir tribesmen have superstitions and talk about the event, just like many biblical events

Okay, back to our story of the Israelites. Any time you feel you know the story, just jump to the end of the Introduction. Abraham’s family are nomads in the land of Canaan and in a time of famine he takes his wife and flocks into Egypt where something extraordinary happens.

‘As he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, I know what a beautiful woman you are. When the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife’. Then they will kill me but will let you live. Say you are my sister, so that I will be treated well for your sake and my life will be spared because of you. When Abram came to Egypt, the Egyptians saw that Sarai was a very beautiful woman. And when Pharaoh’s officials saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh, and she was taken into his palace. He treated Abram well for her sake, and Abram acquired sheep and cattle, male and female donkeys, male and female servants, and camels. But the Lord inflicted serious diseases on Pharaoh and his household because of Abram’s wife Sarai. So Pharaoh summoned Abram. What have you done to me? he said. Why didn’t you tell me she was your wife? Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her to be my wife? Now then, here is your wife. Take her and go! Then Pharaoh gave orders about Abram to his men, and they sent him on his way, with his wife and everything he had.’ (Genesis 12:11)

Maybe I have a dirty mind, but this guy goes into Egypt as a poor, nomadic herdsman, pretends his wife is his sister, she gets off with Pharaoh, they get lots of goodies, Pharaoh gets the pox and realizes she was no virgin and kicks them out. They leave now with all their wealth. You may think it just sounds bad the way it is described and I am being naughty drawing this conclusion, but this is no, one off, event; Abraham goes and does exactly the same to another king.

‘And there Abraham said of his wife Sarah, She is my sister. Then Abimelek king of Gerar sent for Sarah and took her.’ (Genesis 20:2)

And what does the Bible tell us Abraham got from this second business venture? Sheep, cattle, male and female slaves and a thousand pieces of silver. (Genesis 20:14–16) With this money Abraham bought a field in Hebron where he and Sarah were buried on their deaths. This then is the first foothold this nomadic tribe gets in Canaan, but God offers more:

‘When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, "I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you. The whole land of Canaan, where you now reside as a foreigner, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you.’ (Genesis 17)

You either believe God said this, or you think it is a justification for the carnage that will happen in Canaan in the future.

Abraham begot Isaac who begot Jacob who changed his name to Israel and had twelve sons. Because of one very resourceful son, Joseph, the family moved to Egypt where they grew and prospered. Here is a reconstruction of a huge statue of Joseph found in the remains of the ancient town of Averis where the Israelites lived in Egypt.

I’d love to spend time to tell you the full fascinating story of Joseph, but you will have to read Rohl’s book Test of Time.

The twelve brothers were fruitful and, later, the Egyptians began to oppress them, but then occurred a catastrophic event.

‘In his reign, for what cause I know not, a blast of God smote us.’ (Manetho)

Manetho is an Egyptian historian and priest who is probably writing about the time of the Santorini (Thera) volcanic explosion, which gave rise to the biblical story of the Plagues of Egypt. The eruption was believed to have been a thousand times more powerful than a nuclear bomb. It blew out the centre of the island of Santorini and would have been visible from Egypt. We get a clear description in the Bible.

‘By day the Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light.’ (Exodus 13:20)

Which is exactly how the column from the Thera volcano would have appeared in Egypt. The sea floor deposit shows the winds were pushing the volcanic cloud of dust towards Egypt to cause the darkness that descended on the land, as reported in the Bible. I remember flying into Cairo and, as we began our descent, we passed right over the destroyed island of Santorini. So this is the likely cause of the catastrophic events that preceded Moses leading the escape of the twelve tribes from Egypt. But, before they leave, we have this:

‘The Israelites did as Moses instructed and asked the Egyptians for articles of silver and gold. The Lord made the Egyptians favourably disposed toward the people, and they gave them what they asked for; so they plundered the Egyptians.’ (Exodus 12:35)

This is the most extraordinary description of a robbery; God makes a people favourably disposed to being plundered. Perhaps now you can understand why the statue of Joseph shown earlier was found to have been deliberately smashed to pieces.

The Egyptians called these people Habiru, which we believe is the origin of the word Hebrew. The following depiction is of these nomads bringing their herds into Egypt.

Note their distinctive clothes of many colours, unlike the Egyptian who wears white. The Habiru, led by Moses, escaped, not across the Red Sea, but the Sea of Reeds (this correct translation is now in modern Bibles). This area of marshland is on the coast of the Mediterranean, where the tsunami from the Thera explosion hit. The Israelites survived and praised their God for having led them out of such a disaster area.

It is argued by academics that you cannot link the exodus with the Thera explosion because they occurred at different times. So, unfortunately, I will have to spend time justifying my statement, as it is essential to my story of the Israelites. If you look at the film The Ten Commandments you will see Yul Brynner playing Ramses, claimed by academics to be the Pharoah of the Exodus. He ruled 1303 BCE to 1213 BCE. The Thera explosion occurred at least 200 years earlier. So why do the academics suggest Ramses is the Pharoah of the Exodus? The reasoning may surprise you. Let me tell you something I always say which has the same reasoning.

I worked on a film in St. Petersburg, Russia.

From this statement you would date my time as no earlier than 1991. The problem is my statement is both true and not true; I have never worked in St. Petersburg; the city I worked in was Leningrad. And the date was in fact 1989, but I always say now I worked in St Petersburg. This is comparable to the reasoning by academics about the biblical statement, The Israelites journeyed from Ramses. That is the name of the city at the time of writing, not the name at the time of the Exodus, which was Averis. The other biblical statement that academics erroneously use to date the events is:

‘In the fifth year of King Rehoboam, Shishak king of Egypt attacked Jerusalem.’ (1 Kings 14:25)

The academics link that name Shishak to the Pharaoh Shoshenk. The trouble is, it is not right to assume these names are the same, especially as Shoshenk never attacked Jerusalem. The Egyptologist David Rohl, from his understanding of the ancient Egyptian language, gives the correct Pharaoh of the exodus as Dudimose, of the 13th Dynasty. According to the ancient Egyptian historian Manetho, at the time of Dudimose, Egypt met The Wrath of God, and the signs of this great catastrophe were recently discovered from this exact period. Also, the Ipuwer Papyrus in the Dutch National museum describes Egypt as being afflicted by natural disasters and in a state of chaos, with warfare, famine and death everywhere. In the Papyrus, there are some clear parallels, particularly the striking statement that "the river is blood and one drinks from it" (Ipuwer 2.10), and the frequent references to servants abandoning their subordinate status (Ipuwer 3.14). To favourably plunder their masters, I suppose.

Surprisingly the Bible actually gives the dates, which are there for the academics, but they refuse to accept them. The date of the biblical Exodus is given as:

‘And it came to pass in the four hundred and eightieth year after the Exodus in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign…’ (1 Kings 6:1)

Solomon is dated in the Old Testament as 1000 BC, so that dates the Exodus at somewhere around 1476 BC, just about the time of the Thera explosion. Whether the Habiru left at the time of the actual explosion or over the disastrous years that such a massive geological event would have caused we cannot know. Thera was bigger than anything known in modern times and would have affected the whole planet for many years. It could be that Moses returned to Egypt during the chaos the disaster caused, and led a systematic plunder over several years of anarchy. The exact dates we will never know, but I think the Bible is right and the academics are wrong.

The Children of Israel arrived in the desert, where Moses (an Egyptian name) introduced a set of tribal rules, many originating from Egypt; like not eating pork, etc., and placed them in the Ark of the Covenant. He also announced that the God who had rescued them from the catastrophe was extremely jealous and demanded that they worship only him. This has been mistaken as a belief in monotheism which it is not: that came much later. Originally it was; this is your God, don’t worship the other ones because God is jealous; not that there are no other ones. And how could a God be jealous, if there were no other ones to be jealous of? Moses’s new laws were enforced vigorously:

‘Now while the sons of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering wood on the Sabbath day. They brought him to Moses and Aaron. Then the Lord said to Moses, The man shall surely be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp. So all the congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him to death, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.’ (Numbers 15:32)

I will give another example, because this strict observance plays a part in later events that relate to the death of Jesus.

A fight broke out in the camp. The son of the Israelite woman, Shelomith, blasphemed the Name with a curse; so they brought him to Moses. Then the Lord said to Moses, "Take the blasphemer outside the camp. All those who heard him are to lay their hands on his head, and the entire assembly is to stone him. (Leviticus 24:22)

Perhaps he said, That piece of Halibut was good enough for Jehovah, as shown in the stoning scene in Life of Brian. But what is important to our investigation is the ferocity of the response to blasphemy.

For forty years the twelve tribes led a nomadic existence in the desert. The area of the Dead Sea, the lowest elevation of land on the planet, is part of the Great Rift Valley, so seismic activities would be likely. It is very probable that an earthquake occurred which blocked the river.

‘The water from upstream stopped flowing. It piled up in a heap a great distance away… the water flowing down to the Dead Sea was completely cut off. So the people crossed over opposite Jericho.’ (Joshua 3:16)

And after an aftershock (of which there are many, as I can vouch for after a scary time in LA) the walls of Jericho collapsed and the twelve tribes entered the land of Canaan. Normally a conquest is the takeover of the controlling class, usually in a single battle, while the peasants remain to be exploited and taxed. A typical example is the Battle of Hastings which resulted in the Norman conquest of Saxon Britain, leaving the Normans as Lords of the Manor and the Saxons as their serfs. What happened in Canaan is totally different:

‘They devoted the city to the Lord and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it – men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys. Then they burned the whole city and everything in it, but they put the silver and gold and the articles of bronze and iron into the treasury of the Lord’s house. But Joshua spared Rahab the prostitute, with her family and all who belonged to her, because she hid the men Joshua had sent as spies to Jericho.’ (Joshua 6:21)

Strangely, this sneaky prostitute, Rahab, is the great grandmother of King David.

The Israelites now had a foothold in the Promised Land. Remember my dispute with academics about dating? Well they say this story cannot be true because Jericho was destroyed 200 years earlier than the date of the arrival of the Israelites, set by the date of Ramasses! Why don’t they get it? The Bible is not wrong, the Academics are out by at least 200 years, and the date of the destruction of Jericho proves it.

Joshua then moved from Jericho to the next town Ai.

‘When Israel had finished killing all the men of Ai in the fields, the Israelites returned to Ai and killed those who were in it. Twelve thousand men and women fell that day, all the people of Ai. But Israel did carry off for themselves the livestock and plunder of this city, as the Lord had instructed Joshua. So Joshua burned Ai and impaled the body of the king of Ai on a pole and left it there until evening. At sunset, Joshua ordered them to take the body from the pole and throw it down at the entrance of the city gate. And they raised a large pile of rocks over it.’ (Joshua 8:24)

There then follows three chapters in Joshua, listing all the towns they destroyed and all the people they killed, starting with Makkedah.

‘That day Joshua took Makkedah. He put the city and its king to the sword and totally destroyed everyone in it. He left no survivors. And he did to the king of Makkedah as he had done to the king of Jericho.’ (Joshua 10:28)

It goes on and on, in glorified murder and destruction, not a normal conquest but an annihilation of the Canaanites till the Israelites possessed the ‘Promised Land’. Eleven of the tribes were given a portion of this new land of Israel. Moses’s tribe, the Levites were priests and took tithes from the eleven.

Why have I gone back so far in the story of the Israelites? Because these events, the buying of a field in Hebron by Abraham, the promise by God of the land of the Canaanites; the extraordinary escape from the Thera disaster, the tribal laws laid down by Moses; and finally the conquest of Canaan, created a mentality in the nation that gives you some idea of the mood of the people when the Romans took over their ‘Promised Land’. It even has to be considered if one wants to understand Israel today. In 1966, George Tamarin, an Israeli lecturer, conducted the following study. He presented more than a thousand Israeli schoolchildren, aged between eight and fourteen, with the