I loved the book, and was extremely disappointed with Spielberg's translation of it into film. Spielberg lost the central notion of the book, which is that Jesus, as a Mediterranean Jew, would have had dark skin (unless he was medically an albino, which would account for the red haired and blue eyed depictions; an albino person of colour.) For all its epic qualities (about which I agree) I also thought it was an illustration of the tragic irony of mis-justified (unjustifiable, but that's a different conversation) racism. It's not surprising that Spielberg, as a white man who is not a Christian, would miss this thread. To me,the basis of the whole social fabric of the story was the illustration of Christianity as epistemological artillery in the war on people of colour.