The Rest of the Story (Ben Hur) | Bible.org Home The Rest of the Story (Ben Hur) If you were born after 1950, you might not know the story of Ben Hur. This classic book written by a Civil War general, Lew Wallace, in 1880, was turned into a movie starring Charleton Heston, which won the Academy Award for best movie in 1959. It is a towering story of love, of suffering, of the struggle of good against evil, and finally of triumph. Judah Ben Hur, the storys hero, grows up with his boyhood friend, Messala.* They are ancient, Mideastern Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. Judah is, of course, a Jew, and Messala, a Gentile. Judah is the heir of a very great and wealthy house in Jerusalem. Messala is a promising military man who trained in Rome as a soldier, then returned to Jerusalem as the leader of the Roman occupation forces. During a parade, a tile falls from the roof of Judah Ben Hurs house and strikes the new Roman rule. Judah is falsely arrested and sent to row as a slave in a Roman military ship.

Messala knew it was an accident and could have prevented Judahs arrest, but because of his lust for power, didnt. In addition, Judahs mother and sister are imprisoned in Jerusalem. Judah hates Messala, and while in the belly of the military ship, providing the power for naval warfare, he vows that he will live, return to Jerusalem and free his mother and sister. Slaves in such ships rarely lived for more than a year. Judah had been rowing for three years when, in the heat of a naval battle, his ship was sunk. He saved the commander of the ship, and as a reward, was given his freedom and adopted by the commander, who was the top naval officer in the Roman navy, a very powerful and wealthy man. He returns to Jerusalem with all the wealth and power of his new identity, and confronts the astonished Messala, who assumed he had been dead for years. Ben Hur demanded that Messala find and release from prison his mother and sister. Messala finds them in prison, but they have leprosy, so he whisks them away to the leper colony outside Jerusalem to live out a pitiful existence. Ben Hur is told that they are dead.

His hate for Messala grows, and in a chariot race in which Messala and Judah Ben Hur are the primary figures, Messala is killed. With his dying breath, Messala, out of spite, tells Judah the truth about his mother and sister. Judahs hate now no longer has an object to focus on. He generalizes his hatred and becomes a bitter shell of his former self. Finally, in desperation he goes to the leper colony to get his mother and sister to take them to Jesus, this great preacher who has been performing miracles. When they get to Jerusalem where they think they will find Him, they discover that He has just been crucified. Now, all hope is gone, and despair settles over them. However, in the hours and earthquakes rocked the city, Judahs mother and sister are healed of the leprosy, and Judahs heart, along with his mothers and sisters, is turned to Jesus. Their faith, their health and their lives are restored. It is a towering story, deeply moving, and an exquisite portrayal of the power, grace and love of Jesus. Why did I tell you about Ben Hur? Because of this interesting twist.

As Paul Harvey would say, this is “the rest of the story.” When Lew Wallace set out to study the life of Christ, he was not a Christian. In fact, writing a story such as Ben Hur was the farthest thing from his mind. Wallace was antagonistic toward Christianity, and determined he would study the life of Christ so thoroughly, and then write so convincingly, that he would be able to kill the story of Christ. He wanted to prove that Jesus, if He had lived, was not God, but merely a man, that He never rose from the dead, and that Christianity was a hoax. So he studied. This great and enormous subject drew him further and further into his research until the evidence overwhelmed him. He dropped to his knees and cried out to Jesus to be his Savior and Lord. Then, instead of writing a book to prove to the world that Jesus was not God, he wrote Ben Hur, to try to prove to the world that Jesus was God. Max Anders, Jesus, Knowing Our Savior, (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publ., 1995), pp. 98-100.

*In the original book review by Anders this name was printed as "Marsalla." However, in keeping with normal convention, this has been edited to the standard "Messala." Thank you to one of our readers, Lynn C., for making us aware of this discrepancy. ‘Ben-Hur’ Gets a Modern Remake, With Greater Roles for Women Characters ‘Ben-Hur’ Gets a Modern Remake, With Greater Roles for Women Characters By Ann Byle | Jul 19, 2016 The Academy Award-winning 1959 film Ben-Hur is getting a reboot this summer, and the 136-year-old tale it’s based on by Lew Wallace is getting a makeover to match. Tyndale will publish a new edition of Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, rewritten by Wallace’s great-great-granddaughter Carol Wallace , on July 19—one month before Ben-Hur opens in theaters across the U.S.

Wallace, who did not read her great-great-grandfather’s magnum opus until she was an adult, told PW: “I always lumped it in with books that were great stories but too boring to read.” She finally read Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ after her father’s death in 2012—he was an American history buff keen on their author ancestor. A few years later, upon hearing news of a remake of the movie Ben-Hur, Wallace connected with the film’s producers, Mark Burnett and Roma Downey. “They had already been thinking about how they would do a book as a film tie-in, then I showed up: first, as a descendant of Lew Wallace, and second, as a writer,” said Wallace. Urging her to stick closely to the original story, Burnett and Downey tapped Wallace to update the text as the official film tie-in edition of Ben-Hur. Wallace’s familial connection and her writing career made her the perfect woman for the job—she is the coauthor of the New York Times bestseller To Marry an English Lord (Workman, 1989 and 2012), an inspiration for the popular PBS series Downton Abbey.

During the writing process, Wallace drew inspiration from watching the filming of Ben-Hur in Rome. Filming took place at the same location as the original movie, which starred Charlton Heston as Judah Ben-Hur, the Jewish prince betrayed by a Roman friend and sent into slavery. The story follows his return to Judea to exact revenge. “I spent four months living Ben-Hur as I wrote, and the set looked exactly the way I imagined it,” said Wallace. “I walked on the very sawdust where they had the chariot race.” The new edition of Ben-Hur uses modernized language and shorter chapters. Plus, Wallace cut out much of the description of the landscape and scenes in the Middle East, where the story is set. Readers of previous generations had never seen the region, but modern readers have what Wallace called “a warehouse of images” of it. She also gave women larger roles, including that of Naomi, Ben-Hur’s mother; his sister, Tirzah; and the slave, Esther. Women played background roles in the original book, as was typical in Lew Wallace’s time. “I had to give the women more to do,” said Wallace.

The book includes full-color art from the upcoming movie, and it will be released in paperback, hardcover, and e-book, as well as a collector’s edition. Tyndale will partner with the Ben-Hur movie marketing team on brand initiatives, publicity efforts, and social media outreach, in addition to using its own social platforms and book-specific publicity and advertising. A blog tour is timed with the book’s release. ADVERTISEMENT Ben-Hur by Lew Wallace BEN-HUR: A Tale Of The Christ 5-Star Masterpiece Still the Greatest Christian Novel and Film of All Time In 1880, a retired Union General named Lew Wallace completed his first historical novel while serving as governor in the territory of New Mexico. He wrote it in response to questions raised by a famous agnostic sharing a train from Chicago to Indianapolis. At the time, Wallace wasn't as knowledgeable of the facts surrounding the life of Christ as he would have liked. After doing extensive research, he was inspired to write what has become the definitive religious epic. Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ helped Wallace sort out his own beliefs about God and Christ, and inspired others to do the same.

Today, it stands as the most widely read novel of the 19th Century, and one of the most popular works of all time. It has never been out of print in its 130-year history, and has been made into several plays and four films. Ben-Hur reflects the life and journey of Lew Wallace. At the Battle of Shiloah, through an accident, he and his men arrived too late to help, making the Union losses significantly higher than they would have been. As a result, Wallace was disgraced. Judah Ben-Hur, through the accident of a loose roof tile, loses his home and property, his family is sent to prison, and he is sent to the galleys. Through a miracle of courage and circumstances, Wallace worked his way back, became a successful statesman and author, and is today remembered in the Hall of Statues in Washington, DC. Through a similar miracle, Ben-Hur works his way back to save his family and get revenge over those who caused their calamity. Ben-Hur is a story of courage and revenge, but it is also a story of redemption and salvation. I believe Wallace saw his own life in the same light.

Ben-Hur crosses paths with Christ more than once, so that, in the end, his hate and destructiveness are swallowed up in Christ's love and forgiveness. Wallace saw the same miracle in his life. As a novel, Ben-Hur did not take off immediately; but, after several years of word-of-mouth, everyone was reading it, especially pastors and their congregations. In 1900, two producers, Klaw and Erlanger, bought the rights to bring Ben-Hur to the New York stage. It was an amazing production that boasted five teams of horses and chariots on stage at once for the great chariot race. They used treadmills for the teams, with moving scenery. There was also a great sea battle that was considered spectacular. The play ran for twenty years. Its success inspired showmen in the fledgling industry of motion pictures to take note. The first film version of Ben-Hur was pirated in 1907, and ran for 15-minutes. This led to a law suit by Wallace that set the precedent for future book-to-movie copyright cases. Eventually, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer bought the rights and produced the first legitimate adaptation in 1925.

It was silent, 35 mm black-and-white (1.33:1 ratio) with some tinting and a few 2-strip Technicolor scenes. Fred Niblo directed Ramon Novarro as Ben-Hur, Francis X. Bushman as Messala and May McAvoy as Esther in an outstanding production. But it was plagued with many problems, including a sea battle shot in Italy, in which one of the ships actually caught fire, sending the extras into the sea, some of which may have drowned. In the famous chariot race, which was shot in LA, there was a big pile-up of chariots that injured numerous drivers and killed quite a few horses. All of these scenes were left in the final cut. In 1959, William Wyler directed a second Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer production of the book, this time with sound, in 65 mm Panavision (2.76:1 ratio) and in Technicolor. MGM was on the verge of bankruptcy; so, in one bold move, they invested everything they had in the film - and it paid off, making top box office for that year.

Charlton Heston, who had worked with Wyler in The Big Country the previous year, played the title role and won an Oscar for it. Stephen Boyd, who would again drive a chariot in The Fall Of The Roman Empire (1965), played Messala. Haya Harareet, the only native Palestinian in the cast, played Esther. All the Romans were played by British actors, including Jack Hawkins as Quintus Arrius. Hugh Griffith won a Supporting Actor Oscar for his role as the wonderful Sheik Ilderim, owner of the four white Arabians that pull Ben-Hur's chariot. There were 11 Oscars won in all - still the most ever, sharing honors with Titanic (1997) and The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King (2003). The other Oscars won by Ben-Hur were Best Picture, Best Director, Best Cinematography for a Color Film, Best Art Direction-Set Direction for a Color Film, Best Costume Design for a Color Film, Best Effects-Special Effects, Best Film Editing, Best Music-Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture, and Best Sound.

The only one it was nominated for that it didn't win was Best Writing-Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium. I found the novel by Lew Wallace to be more charming and less "big" than the 1959 film. Even the characters were more life-size. I pictured Robert Taylor in the role of Ben-Hur rather than Charlton Heston. The only actor from the film that seemed to fit the novel was Finlay Currie as Balthasar, the wise man from Egypt. He was perfect. The entire first of eight books, into which Ben-Hur is divided, is occupied by the three wise men, of which only Balthasar is carried through the rest of the book, and plays a significant role. In the film, in addition to playing Balthasar, Currie also narrates. There is far more focus on Christ in the novel, the 1900 stage play (in which he is played by a beam of light) and the 1925 film than in the 1959 version. The book wrestles with the question of whether He will be an earthly King or a Savior of souls.

Ben-Hur, who is a Sadducee, hopes he will be an earthly King, and actually trains three legions of Galileeans in preparation to help Him overthrow the occupying Romans. But Balthasar is convinced Christ will be a Savior of souls, and tries to convince Ben-Hur of that. It is not until the miraculous events of the last of the eight books that he accepts that fact, and accepts Christ as his Savior. To date, Ben-Hur is still the greatest Christian novel ever written, and the greatest Christian film ever produced, as well as one of the all-time great classics. I don't agree with the AFI ranking of Ben-Hur at #100. I believe it, and the silent version, should share a position in the top 40 at least. There will never be another Ben-Hur, the 2003 animated version notwithstanding. It has been estimated that to reproduce Ben-Hur as it was produced in 1959, it would cost over a quarter of a billion dollars. That just isn't going to happen. And CGI won't cut it. You can't reproduce a live chariot race like the one in Ben-Hur using CGI and catch anyone's breath.

So, this is a classic that will live as long as films are made. And, in my opinion, beyond that. You can read the novel, which is now in the public domain, by going online to Waitsel Smith, April 18, 2008 Text © 2008 Waitsel Smith. Images © 1925, 1959 MGM. All Rights Reserved. The Music of Ben-Hur - General Lew Wallace Study & Museum General Lew Wallace Study & Museum in Ben-Hur / Larry's tidbits / Lew's writings tagged Ben-Hur / E. T. Paull / Edgar Stillman Kelley / Miklos Rozsa / Stewart Copeland by Stephanie Cain The majesty of Lew Wallace’s Ben-Hur has been captured in music a number of times over the years. The 1899 stage production of Ben-Hur had music composed for it by Edgar Stillman Kelley. Born in 1857, Kelley was an American but received much of his training in Germany. He incorporated non-Western influences in his romantic style works.

Kelley based his score for Ben-Hur on Greek influences; it was the most popular of his works and was said to have been performed more than 5,000 times. In 1894, E.T. Paull wrote and published his “Chariot Race or Ben Hur March”, which was respectfully inscribed to General Lew Wallace. Paull, who was born in 1858, is generally considered a minor American composer and publisher. He used short phrases or “descriptives” to tie the music to the cover illustration. In the case of Ben-Hur, he quoted a section from Lew Wallace’s chariot race: “On Atair! On Rigel! What, Antares! Dost thou linger now? Good horse – Oho, Aldebaran! ‘Tis done! ‘Tis done! Ha, Ha! We have overthrown the proud, ours the glory! Ha, Ha! The work is done Soho! Rest!” The 1925 silent film version was actually far from silent, with the dramatic score composed by William Axt. Axt was a composer of great note in Hollywood.

He was credited with creating memorable scores for movies between 1919 and the early 1940s such as: The Prisoner of Zenda, Don Juan, Camille, Grand Hotel, Dinner at Eight, The Thin Man, Libeled Lady, and David Copperfield, among others. Grandest of all was the music composed by Miklos Rozsa for the 1959 version of Ben-Hur. Rozsa conducted a 100-piece orchestra for the MGM recording, which stretched over 12 sessions and 72 hours. The final recording for the movie used over 2.5 hours of original music which, until 2001, made it the longest score ever recorded for a motion picture. Rozsa won his third Academy Award for the score and it proved so popular that it was recorded for the public on three LP albums. Subsequently a one-album version of the score was released, making the Ben-Hur film score the first to be released in its entirety and also as a separate album. More recently, percussionist Stewart Copeland of The Police fame has been added to the list of musicians associated with Ben-Hur.

In 2009 Copeland, who is also a talented composer responsible for several film scores, operas, and ballets, wrote the score for Ben Hur Live , an arena spectacular complete with live horses and burning ships. Last year Copeland also totally re-scored the 90-minute 1925 silent film. The Virginia Arts Festival is hosting a performance of Copeland’s score over Easter weekend in April. If you manage to catch a performance of Copeland’s work, let us know what you think! In the meantime, we’ll be in the Carriage House, listening to Miklos Rozsa. Why "Ben-Hur" is My Favorite Movie WHY "BEN-HUR" IS MY FAVORITE MOVIE Or, How Non-Believers Mayeth Enjoy a Perennial Easter Favorite THE DAILY OBJECTIVIST (21 APRIL 2000) By Chris Matthew Sciabarra [On 14 April 2000, TDO published Sciabarra's list of favorite movies taken from his " Favorite Things " page.

Sciabarra received a number of emails from Objectivists, who are atheists, asking him to explain his choice of "Ben-Hur"--a film with a religious theme--as his favorite movie of all time. What follows is a slightly expanded version of Sciabarra's TDO published response; given the reappearance of the ancient epic in film, in such movies as "Gladiator," "Alexander," and "Troy," and of the Christ story, in Mel Gibson's "The Passion of The Christ," this discussion of "Ben-Hur" remains timely.] Within days after The Daily Objectivist reprinted my lengthy list of favorite movies, I received mail from disgruntled readers upset by the "random" quality of my choices, which seemed, they said, to bear "no relation" to one another or to Objectivism. Though I had prefaced my list with a warning against the disease of PC ("Philosophical Correctness") within Objectivism, I was not surprised by the charred epistles I received. One reader, however, was especially disturbed by the choice of "Ben-Hur" as my favorite film of all time.

In a post to the movies@wetheliving.com discussion group, he argued that while the film had "some fantastic action sequences...the plot resolution is a literal deus ex machina: Christ shows up, cures everyone of leprosy and saves the day. Certainly this deserves some kind of demerit from a rational (not to say artistic) perspective." Since the published list had no more than two or three sentences of explanation attached to each entry, I think it is worthwhile to offer some explanation at least for my choice of "Ben-Hur" as my all-time #1. How it all began When I was nine years old, I saw "Ben-Hur" at New York City's majestic Palace Theater. It was the tenth anniversary re-release of the all-time Oscar champ, and the movie was being shown in all its magnificent 70-millimeter glory. Walking into the Palace, seeing the famous portrait of Judy Garland, who had just passed away, and then taking in some three and a half hours of ancient Roman spectacle, was an overwhelming experience. I loved the story and was as deeply moved by its characters and themes as any nine-year-old could be.

Today, after having seen the film umpteen times, I have learned to appreciate it on many different levels. The film, among the 100 greatest selected by the American Film Institute , won an unprecedented eleven Academy Awards (tied in 1998 by "Titanic" [and in 2004 by "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King"]), and has been celebrated by directors from Martin Scorsese to James Cameron for its immense artistic impact. In my view, there is not a single Oscar award that it did not deserve. The cinematography, film editing, art direction, set decoration, sound, and special effects are superb. Its score, written by the great Mikl�s R�zsa , is among the finest achievements in symphonic soundtrack music ever recorded; in fact, the themes stand on their own as orchestral compositions in their eloquent expression of passion, struggle, and redemption. (For an introduction to the importance of orchestral scores from an Objectivist perspective, see Jeff Britting's essay, "Romantic Music: Dead or Alive?," in ART Ideas 5, no.

3 (1998): 7-8.) Charlton Heston's "Best Actor" performance (in the title role) is one of the most nuanced of his career. Hugh Griffith's supporting actor performance (as Sheik Ilderim, owner of the horses that Ben-Hur rides to victory in the chariot race) and William Wyler's remarkable direction were also worthy recipients. (The only Oscar the movie failed to grab was the one for "Best Screenplay," an omission that can probably be chalked up to Hollywood politics. The script involved everyone from Karl Tunberg to Christopher Fry; even Gore Vidal got into the act. Wyler was livid that Tunberg was the only nominee, and he publicly praised Fry's contributions in Variety. The controversy apparently led most Academy members to vote for "Room at the Top" instead of "Ben-Hur.") Ultimately, however, it matters not how many awards or accolades a film garners. What matters is the film. Is it a work of art worthy of our attention?

Such a question has much to do with the plot and the theme, which is why some Objectivists might be disturbed by my selection of a film explicitly subtitled "A Tale of the Christ." Levels of appreciation But as Ayn Rand tells us, there are many levels on which we can appreciate art. Rand lists four dimensions of appreciation: the literal (which pertains to the specific events of the story); the connotative (which pertains to the values portrayed or suggested through the events); the symbolic (which operates on a deeper level of meaning); and the emotional (which encapsulates our spiritual response to art). "Ben-Hur" is based on the post-Civil War novel (1880) written by General Lew Wallace. Translated into a well-known play, and into three cinematic versions (the one-reeler 1907 version, the sprawling 1925 MGM version with Ramon Novarro and Francis X. Bushman, and the 1959 MGM epic), the book, says C. L.

Bennet, is "one of the most successful works of fiction ever written in any language." As a film, it is at once passionate and subtle, both action-packed entertainment and a testament to aesthetic symbolism. No brief summary of the story can do it justice, for there are many interconnected characters and subplots. Here, I present the essentials. The film tells the story of a wealthy Jew, Prince Judah Ben-Hur, who is reunited with his boyhood friend, Messala (played by Stephen Boyd), who saved Ben-Hur's life when they were boys. The strong emotional ties between these two characters have been described as "homoerotic" by Gore Vidal, who had a small hand in the script. Upon their meeting, they hug and laugh, and, arms intertwined, drink to their mutual happiness. They throw spears in friendly competition, hitting the same target ("where the beams cross"--an omen of the crosses to come), "still close in every way"--except one: Messala is a Roman in a Roman world...Ben-Hur is a Jew. Messala has returned to the province of Judea a Tribune of Imperial Rome, in the hopes of making Ben-Hur a collaborator in Roman rule.

When Ben-Hur refuses to name the freedom fighters among his people, the friendship is irreparably fractured. Later, Ben-Hur and his sister Tirzah (played by Cathy O'Donnell) watch from the roof of their home as the new Roman Governor, Valerius Gratus, enters the unfriendly city with Messala. There is an accident: Tirzah leans on some loose tiles that fall to the street and strike the governor. Ben-Hur takes the blame, swearing it is an accident, but Messala will hear none of it. He orders Ben-Hur, his mother, and his sister into custody. And though he discovers the loose tiles himself, he wishes to make an example of the family of Hur. This one action, knows Messala, will strike fear into the hearts of potential Judean terrorists. An oath of vengeance As Messala sends him off to slavery in the galleys of the Roman fleet, Ben-Hur swears revenge. He leaves behind his mother, Miriam--played by Martha Scott, who also played the mother of Moses (Heston) in "The Ten Commandments"--and sister, who are sentenced to prison as co-conspirators in the attempted assassination of Gratus.

Ben-Hur also leaves behind a woman named Esther (played by Haya Harareet), daughter of his steward, Simonides (played by Sam Jaffe). (The ties between Esther and Ben-Hur are not immediately consummated, but their romantic bond is clear.) Crossing the desert on the way to the galleys, Ben-Hur nearly dies of thirst. He is given water by a young Nazarene, a carpenter's son. His strength is renewed, his life saved. The symbolism of the water, its cleansing power and life-giving qualities, is used in so many instances throughout the film that it merits an essay in and of itself. After three years as a galley slave, Ben-Hur, who has been reduced to a number ("41"), meets the Consul of Rome, Commander Quintus Arrius (played by Jack Hawkins). Arrius tells the galley slaves that they are all condemned men who will die chained to their oars: "We keep you alive to serve this ship. So row well and live." Despite the brief on-screen time they share, the scenes between Heston and Hawkins are striking in depth.

(See especially the camera cuts that flash their expressions during a test of wills, as Arrius orders the Hortator to increase his rhythm to "ramming speed"--the galley slaves rowing faster and faster, collapsing all around, while Ben-Hur finds the strength to go on.) As a harrowing naval battle against a fleet of Macedonian ships looms, Arrius gives Ben-Hur a chance to survive. In the violent hand-to-hand combat that follows, Arrius is thrown overboard; Ben-Hur dives into the water, dragging him to safety on a floating piece of wood. Thinking the war lost, Arrius wishes only to die. But as they sit safely on the raft, Ben-Hur tells him to "row well and live." Meanwhile, back in Judea When Arrius returns safely to Rome to meet the Emperor Tiberius in a Victory Parade, traveling with Ben-Hur by his side, the emperor allows the Consul to take Ben-Hur as his slave, as reward for his valor. Ben-Hur learns to drive Arrius's chariots to victory in the Roman games.

And although Arrius adopts Ben-Hur as his son, in place of the son he lost, he knows that Ben-Hur yearns to return to Judea in search of his mother and sister. Return he does, as the Young Arrius, ordering Messala to find his mother and sister or pay the consequences. Some four years after their imprisonment, they are now thought dead. But they are discovered in the lower levels of a Judean prison--lepers. On their way to the Valley of the Lepers, they stop at the house of Hur, now in darkness and disarray. Miriam and Tirzah beg Esther not to tell Ben-Hur of their plight; she swears on her love for him to respect their wishes and to tell him that they are dead. Devastated by this news, driven by desires for revenge, Ben-Hur confronts Messala in the Judean circus. The ensuing chariot race (copied to some extent by Lucas in "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace") is among the greatest single cinematic achievements in the history of film. Ben-Hur emerges victorious. But with his dying breath, Messala exacts one last cruelty on his old friend.

He tells Ben-Hur that his mother and sister are alive, and that he can find them in the Valley of the Lepers: "if you can recognize them." Indeed, says Messala, "the race is not over." Broken, sobbing, and helpless, Ben-Hur begins a slow descent into spiritual corruption. Though a new citizen of Rome, he knows that he has become "part of a [larger] tragedy." He becomes self-pitying, consumed by hate, disgusted with the world at large. He wants to cleanse the land in blood. He laments ever having taken a sip of the stranger's water in the desert. "I should have done better if I'd poured it into the sand. I'm thirsty still." Pontius Pilate (played by Frank Thring), the newly-appointed Roman governor, fears Ben-Hur's growing influence and instructs him to Rome before "crucifying" himself "on a shadow such as old resentment or impossible loyalties. Perfect freedom," claims Pilate, "has no existence." But Ben-Hur renounces his ties to Rome. He begins to understand how the authoritarian power of the Empire corrupts the best among men (shades of Rand's We the Living).

Not only was his friend corrupted, Ben-Hur declares, but he himself is "unclean...and at the mercy of tyranny." He understands Pilate's point that the world is Rome (indeed, Rome would be the world, the given, for another 400 years). But if full political freedom for his people is not immediately possible, it is still possible--and necessary--to seek a rational life in an irrational society. Or as the Christ figure says in another MGM epic, "King of Kings"--while it may not be possible to be freed from one's prison cell, it is still possible to be free within one's prison cell. What Ben-Hur seeks is peace within himself, even as he contemplates death. Checks premises But Esther tells Ben-Hur that "death generates death." She pleads with him to listen to the words of peace being spoken by the Rabbi from Nazareth. When Ben-Hur, committed to the destructive path before him, refuses, she declares: "It was Judah Ben-Hur I loved. What has become of him? You seem to be now the very thing you set out to destroy, giving evil for evil. Hatred is turning you to stone.

It's as if you had become Messala." Stunned by the comparison, Ben-Hur checks his premises. He eventually travels to the Valley of the Lepers, and, with Esther, finds his sick mother and dying sister. They begin a search for the Nazarene. The search is stillborn. Condemned by Pilate, Christ walks to his death on Golgotha. Ben-Hur recognizes the man--he is the man who had given him water in the desert, and the will to live. He attempts to return that gift, struggling with Roman guards to give Christ a sip of water. But the water barely touches Christ's lips before it is kicked to the ground. A witness to Christ's execution, and of Christ's courageous ability to rise above a state of metaphysical torment, Ben-Hur begins to reassert his own will to live. As a storm commences, the blood of Christ drips into puddles of water, which carry this most precious blood throughout the countryside. It is ironic that Ben-Hur would have cleansed the world in blood, for here blood and water merge.

In a powerful series of mythic images, the cleansing rain falls on the lepers, and at the moment of Christ's death, they too are cleansed. Ben-Hur tells Esther that he felt Christ's voice, Christ's call for forgiveness, telling him to take the "sword" out of his hand. The physical miracle, which he celebrates upon seeing his mother and sister alive and well, is a symbol of the greater spiritual miracle: for in the end, Ben-Hur reclaims his values, and his life with those he loves. In the earliest scenes of the movie, the centurion Sextus had told Messala that he wondered how the Romans would ever control Judea given the powerful "ideas" that fuel its struggle for freedom. Messala answered: "You ask how to fight an idea. Well, I'll tell you how: with another idea." And so the conflicts in the film are conflicts of ideas: of individual liberty versus state power, of love versus hate, of values versus their extinction, of salvation versus corruption.

The film is indeed bracketed by two divine events: the first scenes concern the Adoration of the Magi and the final scenes take place in the shadow of Christ's Cross, as we witness shepherds tending to their flock. Christ makes a few cameo appearances, but we never actually see his face or hear him speak. More than anything, we feel in him the symbolic presence of the call for personal redemption in the face of oppressive tyranny and self-exile. About the same age as Christ, Ben-Hur is also on trial, and like the soon-to-be resurrected Christ, Ben-Hur must triumph over the darkness. [The parallels with Christ are quite explicit actually; when Ben-Hur wins the chariot race, Pilate, the Roman Governor, places the crown of victory upon his head and declares Ben-Hur the cheering crowd's "one true god, for the moment"--foreboding another who will stand before Pilate, wearing upon his head a crown of thorns.] With this "tale of the Christ" taken as backdrop, the film deploys the motif of birth, death, and rebirth with great effectiveness.

(Indeed, the opening credits of the film and its very last frames display God's bestowal upon Adam of the spark of life as depicted in the Sistine Chapel.) All things possible And so it is possible for a perennial Easter favorite to have meaning for non-believers and even for atheistic Objectivists: for "Ben-Hur" can be read in much more secular terms. The film focuses on how the central character moves from his own unjust imprisonment, to his self-imprisonment via the very vices he seeks to destroy, to his personal redemption. Interestingly, Ayn Rand herself counted a Biblical work of historical fiction as among her favorites. She regarded Quo Vadis? by Henryk Sienkiewicz as one of the greatest novels ever written.

In fact, Rand tells Ross Baker (Letters of Ayn Rand, 11 December 1945, 251): "A book expert in New York told me that the biggest fiction sellers of all times (and the surest recipe for a bestseller) have always been religious novels with a good story (Ben-Hur, Quo Vadis?, The Robe [all made into spectacular epic films--CMS] )--and that The Fountainhead is a religious novel [insofar as] it gives to . . . readers . . . a sense of faith, courage and moral uplift." Clearly, Rand was impressed by other works of Western mythology as well, given her own use of the Prometheus myth, and her own creative construction of novels that might be viewed as epic myths. Many Objectivists would not think twice about recommending Greek and Roman myths and legends, such as "Jason and the Argonauts," "Hercules," "The Iliad and the Odyssey," "The Aeneid," or even modern myths like "Star Wars." Yet they recoil in Philistine horror over reverence for such a masterpiece as "Ben-Hur," which revolves around the Christ story.

The Biblical "mythology" of the New Testament is one of the "greatest stories ever told." It has influenced some of the most passionate literature, art, and music in the Western canon. "Ben-Hur" makes great use of this imagery and conveys through it a powerful message of individual struggle and salvation. Thumbs up; way up.

Question: Who wrote the book on which the 1959 film, "Ben Hur' was based?
Answer: LEW WALLACE