“It wasn't a take on Christ's life. They wanted to do Jesus Christ less for glory; decided that when they read Jesus they couldn't make fun of him. What they do is make fun of Brian, who quite clearly isn't Christ…. Judea at the time was full of pretend messiahs–“I should know Lord, I've following many of them,” is one of Cleese's lines. And it is anti-typical of that and the internecine warfare that was going on between the various Jewish liberation groups…. So much of that was extremely accurate. It was an really interesting discussion of why was Jesus different than the Brians and everyone else who was around.”
That's from the above clip on BBC Radio 4' Today Programme (also featuring John Cleese and Michael Palin).
In case you were thinking Burridge is no theologian, he's also a professor of biblical interpretation and in October “>The Telegraph)