James Frey, the author who makes up his own story, has turned his fixed his literary eye on Jesus. Or basically he’s borrowed the name Jesus and a few of the events from Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and added his own details.

James Frey, semi-memoirist and Oprah antagonist, is back and better than ever. Or weirder than ever. Frey is teaming up with Larry Gagosian to publish a new novel, The Final Testament of the Holy Bible. Gagosian will print a scant 11,000 copies and Frey will self-publish the book online. Do real publishers still not want anything to do with Frey after the Million Little Pieces debacle, even though his last book, Bright Shiny Morning, did pretty well? Or maybe the book isn’t…up to par. I haven’t read the thing, but as Frey told Page Six, it’s supposed to be “a theoretical third volume of the Bible — there was the Old, there was the New, and this is the Final.” That’s a pretty grand vision, especially when your Jesus is an alcoholic bachelor who sleeps with prostitutes. SOURCE

This reminds me of the Last Temptation of Christ, a movie about Jesus that Martin Scorsese made in 1988. If you were alive at the time, you remember the media hell-storm that was created over that film’s release.

According to the book’s description…

For two thousand years people have spent their lives waiting, praying, fighting, begging, and going to war for the Messiah. They continue to do so, every minute of every day, every day of every year. And yet, as far as we know, the Messiah has never come. How would a man like Jesus be perceived if he appeared today? How would he live, what would he say, what would he preach and believe? How would society react to him, and what would they to do him? And though he may be the Messiah, he is not the man that has been prayed for over the course of the last two thousand years. He believes religion is a fraud, government is a sham, and that love should be a choice, regardless of gender. He is, as Christ was, everything that religious leaders and government officials fear, what they speak against, and what they destroy. He did not burn books, or picket doctor’s offices, or spend his time in religious institutions. He simply preached a message. Love your fellow man. Written from the perspective of his family, friends, and followers, in the same way the story of Jesus Christ was told in the New Testament, The Final Testament of the Holy Bible is the story of Ben Zion Avrohom, also known as Ben Jones, also known as the Messiah, also known as the Lord God. In The Final Testament of the Holy Bible James Frey, America’s most controversial bestselling writer, has written the most compelling and provocative work of his career.

James went on to say…“I tried to write a radical book. I’m releasing it in a radical way. Never again will somebody release my work in a way that doesn’t make me comfortable.”

The book releases on April 22.