The Last Temptation of Christ Book

This book was scandalous when it was published by Kazantzakis in 1955 and the reason that he - despite being a fervent Orthodox Christian - was refused an Orthodox burial. It was of course the source of the similarly scandalous movie of 1988 with Willem Dafoe as Jesus. Why the scandal? Well, like when Rushdie imagined in The Satanic Verses that perhaps Satan sat on Mohammed's shoulder and dictated parts of the Qu'ran, Kazantzakis looks at the human side of Christ (as depicted in the Gospel of Mark where his is more of a man than a man-god), he allows Jesus to have sexual fantasies about Mary Magdalene and he experiences the guilt of these fantasies and works through them. I found the plot quite plausible and challenging to my imagination and my belief system - but in a positive way. I read it after the Christians went ape-shit crazy in 1988 when the film came out and I can say that the book is far better than the film. I ended up breaking with my belief system - not because of the book but more because of what I perceived as the hypocrisy of a religion that calls Islam closed minded but that could not accept the slightest interrogation into the psyche of its founding figure. Perhaps you should read it and judge for yourselves.