Jerusalem Idol

When a cross maker in Galilee Province, faces confiscation of the family business by the Romans, a young stand-up comedian and wannabe prophet, Yoni ben Solomon, is off on a madcap journey to save his father and find fame and fortune as the next winner of ‘Jerusalem’s Idol’, the number one reality show competition in ancient Israel.

Yoni wins an all-expense paid trip down to Lake Tiberius where he hires a motley group of misfit disciples led by his soon to be ‘producer’, Rafi Baba. When Yoni buys the freedom of a beautiful Nubian slave, Quivinia Maximus, she not only helps him win a spot in the competition but tries to prevent his new found fame from going to his head. It’s hard resisting the idea that you’re the Messiah especially after besting your number one opponent, the reluctant Brutus, an adjunct professor all the way from Britannia Community College, studying for his PhD in the Holy Land.

When Yoni runs afoul of a mad procurator, Marcellus, it’s his Jerusalem’Idol fans who save him from a certain demise on Golgotha. But Marcellus turns the tables on Yoni and imprisons his buddies in a leper colony with an impending date to be fed to the lions. With the aid of Brutus, who has now accepted a position as Executive Producer at Jerusalem Idol, Yoni sponsors a promotion of his own by inaugurating ‘Leper’s Day’ at the Coliseum and turns the tables on Marcellus as he overcomes his own deep-felt fear of the Leper Community and leads them to a veritable rout of bad guy Gladiators, saving his disciples, and one true love, Quivinia, in the process.