Kazantzakis argues in the novel's preface that by facing and conquering all of man's weaknesses, Jesus struggled to do God's will without ever giving in to the temptations of the flesh.

[1] According to the book's English translator, Peter A. Bien, the psychology in The Last Temptation is based on the idea that every person, Jesus included, is evil by nature as well as good, violent and hateful as well as loving.

… derived from the inspiration of the theories of Freud and historical materialism, [this book] perverts and hurts the Gospel discernment and the God-man figure of our Lord Jesus Christ in a way coarse, vulgar, and blasphemous.

"[4] A campaign was also started in the Greek Orthodox Church to excommunicate Kazantzakis, which ultimately failed, but he was denied normal funeral rites upon his death.

[5] In 1963, a Roman Catholic priest in Ashland, Wisconsin, forbade one of his parishioners from returning a library copy of The Last Temptation of Christ, arguing "that it would be a mortal sin to make it available to others.

Lumet commissioned a screenplay written by Lazarre Seymour Simckes and announced his plans to shoot the film in the fall of 1971, though the project did not come to fruition.

[9] After many delays, a film version directed by Martin Scorsese was released in 1988, starring Willem Dafoe as Jesus, Barbara Hershey as Mary Magdalene, and Harvey Keitel as Judas Iscariot.

[15] In a 1988 private concert filmed at a Holiday Inn in Houston, American country singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt cited The Last Temptation of Christ as the inspiration behind his 1970 song "Nothin"; Van Zandt claimed to have written the lyrics the same night he finished reading the book, acknowledging "the big controversy goin' on" surrounding Kazantzakis' work at the time.