Each Easter weekend, I try to make time to watch what in my view is the greatest movie ever made: the 1959 version of Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, the winner of 11 academy awards, directed by William Wyler, produced by Sam Zimbalist, and starring Charlton Heston and Stephen Boyd as childhood friends—one a prominent Jew and the other a Roman consul—who came of age and clashed in Judea during the time of Jesus. The story is based on a book written by Gen. Lew Wallace, who saw action during the American Civil War leading Union troops at Ft. Donelson, Shiloh, and Monocacy. Wallace completed the novel in 1880 at his residence in Crawfordsville, Indiana. The book has never been out of print and has been translated into 20 different languages. The National Endowment for Humanities calls it “the most influential Christian book written in the nineteenth century.”
The movie is something special, too. The acting in Ben-Hur is superb. Wyler’s direction keeps you glued to the screen for more than three hours, and the music by Miklos Rozsa is simply magnificent. It is music that keeps playing in your head hours after you watch the movie.
The 1959 movie begins with an unforgettable musical overture. In the first scene, Joseph and Mary are being screened by Roman census takers, and then Jesus is born in Bethlehem and visited by the three kings bearing gifts, who were directed to the site by a bright star in the sky. The movie quickly switches to a time when Jesus is an adult and is “doing His Father’s work” instead of helping Joseph do carpentry work. Meanwhile, the Roman consul Messala (Stephen Boyd) arrives in Jerusalem and visits Judah Ben-Hur (Heston), his boyhood friend, and Judah’s mother and sister. They greet each other warmly, but when Messala asks Judah to inform on his fellow Jews who oppose continued Roman rule, Judah refuses.
When the new Roman governor arrives in Judea, as he rides on his horse next to Ben-Hur’s residence, Judah’s sister accidentally causes a stone tile to fall to the street near the governor’s horse which reacts in a way that throws the governor to the ground, killing him. Roman soldiers arrest Judah, his mother and his sister. Judah is sentenced to serve as a slave in the Roman galleys, while his mother and sister are held for years in a dungeon and contract leprosy. While Judah is forcibly marched on his way to the galleys without food or water near Jesus’ home in Nazareth, Judah falls to the ground, exhausted, nearly giving up hope. Judah asks for God’s help, and Jesus walks over to him, gives him water and comforts him.
Judah Ben-Hur serves on a Roman ship in battle during which he escapes the galleys and saves the life of a Roman admiral (played by the splendid British actor Jack Hawkins). The battle is a Roman victory, and later the admiral, with Judah at his side, is feted by Caesar and the people of Rome. The admiral formally adopts Judah as his son and Judah becomes a champion charioteer.
Judah, now the legal son of a high Roman official, returns to Jerusalem and confronts a startled Messala about the whereabouts and condition of his mother and sister. Messala learns that they are still in the dungeon but are lepers who have been released to live in the “Valley of the Lepers.” A woman named Esther (played by the beautiful Haya Harareet) who Judah fell in love with prior to his arrest, tells Judah that his mother and sister are dead—keeping a promise she made to his mother and sister.
Judah befriends an Arab prince who breeds and races horses to compete in chariot races in Judea. Judah is determined to avenge his loved ones by killing Messala. Meanwhile, Esther has listened to Jesus’ teaching, including a scene where she is in the audience during the Sermon on the Mount. She tells Judah that Jesus teaches to forgive and love your enemies, and that the peacemakers will be called the children of God. But Judah is bent on revenge, and he gets it during the chariot race when Messala gets dragged by his own horses and trampled by others. As Messala is dying, he tells Judah that his mother and sister are still alive and suffer from leprosy. So their contest of wills survives even Messala’s death.
Eventually, Judah and Esther take his mother and sister from the Valley of the Lepers just in time for them to see Jesus carrying his cross on the way to Golgotha. Once, when Jesus falls to the ground, Judah attempts to bring him water—he recognizes Jesus as the man who gave him water during the time of his greatest despair. Roman soldiers, however, shove him away. Judah watches as Jesus is crucified. Esther and Judah’s mother and sister stop in a cave on their way home as darkness envelops the land and a thunderous storm arrives. As the lightning flashes, the marks of leprosy on their faces and hands miraculously disappear.
When Judah gets home, he tells Esther that Jesus forgave those who crucified Him, and Jesus’ words took the sword from his heart. Judah embraces Esther then sees his cured mother and sister and embraces them. In death, Jesus triumphs.
Ben-Hur is a Christian realist masterpiece. The Roman political characters’ main focus is on their own power and privileges. Childhood friends become bitter adult enemies for political reasons. Injustice often prevails. Vengeance clouds judgment and delays or prevents forgiveness. Judah Ben-Hur’s quest for vengeance almost costs him the love and companionship of Esther. Fear sometimes triumphs over mercy. It is Pontius Pilate himself who tells Judah Ben-Hur that great powers sometimes produce great errors. Ben-Hur is full of human frailty, cruelty, and tragedy.
It is the paradox of human nature, however, that for every negative impulse there is a positive virtue. For Judah Ben-Hur, faith and love overcome vengeance. His tragic journey, filled with injustice, suffering and sorrow, ends in joy and happiness. Jesus’ words of forgiveness while dying on the cross heal Judah’s heart. And while nations cannot and will not govern and act in this world in conformance with Jesus’ teachings in the Sermon on the Mount, individuals can. “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.”
