Growing up, the story of Judah Ben-Hur in the 1959 film adaptation was one of my favourites, despite the long running time and whatever I think about the main actor, Charlton Heston now. It is hard to separate that version of the story in my mind from the book in my hand. I had a soft spot for old movies, because of Ben-Hur, and even as a child I can appreciate the effort it took to make a movie with this level of spectacle — but the story, the marrows of it is something that enchanted me, endeared me to the character of Judah Ben-Hur, a strong man tested in a biblical sense, and with a stubborn persistence was able to overcome his challenges.
Ben-Hur the book is all the things that I love that I mentioned above and more. The novel is not a mere story of a man living a parallel life as the Messiah, but it is a novel of religious pondering, arguably theological in nature. That it is laden in historical accuracy means that it can slip in comfortably under the genre of historical fiction, but this cheapens its standing compared to what sort of historical fiction comes out of the shelves these days (no, I’m not looking at you Hilary Mantel, you’re alright).
It is a highly speculative fiction of the life of Jesus, but more importantly, a reflection on how the average man would think at that point in time. It raises questions about one’s faith, and thus one’s skepticism. It is a book which may end up making you a better person, not because of its heavy religious undertones, but the gravitas of humanism behind the actions and thoughts of its characters.
The Three Wise Men congregates
The Jebel es Zubleh is a mountain fifty miles and more in length, and so narrow that its tracery on the map gives it a likeness to a caterpillar crawling from the south to the north.
So Wallace sets the scene for Ben-Hur in this first sentence, with a threatening horizon and almost uncrossable mountains which divides one world to the next. Soon, we meet three men who by chance, followed the stars which led them to meet each other by fate, men we are familiar with in our childhoods (if you’re of Christian origin), but we have never seen them this close before — not the jewels laden on their skin, their beliefs, their crisis of faith and the sandals that they wear. Balthasar the Egyptian was one of these men, and soon they will find the newborn baby destined to be the King of the Jews.
Fast forward many years later, we don’t hear about the baby anymore, but we get to Jerusalem where Judah Ben-Hur discovered that his childhood best friend, Messala, had now been tainted by Roman idealisms and their friendship is now stretched and have borne enmity. It gets even worse when an accident gave Messala an opportunity to put Judah’s family away while syphoning away their wealth to other pockets.
With his mother and sister locked up somewhere for dead, Judah found himself in an equally disadvantaged position being a slave rower in a galley. When the ship sinks, but he saved the tribute, Judah was adopted to the ranks and wealth of a Roman admiral. His mission now is the search of enclosure — to find out what happens to his family, while at his heart, vengeance still seethes towards Messalah.
The purpose of fiction in a novel like Ben-Hur
The scope of Ben-Hur is massive, and regardless of anybody’s disposition to Christianity and religion in general, it is a superbly ambitious book that demands respect. This is where fiction serves the bridge for our understanding of history (I would never label history as facts, unless we’re talking purely about dates) — we may know the events that transpire, but we’re disadvantaged at a distance. Fiction brings that gap closer.
The first part of the novel is the journey of the three wise men to find the infant Messiah. We know very little of the manger where Jesus was born — the smell of the animals, the presence of the party, the cave which was also home to the previous kings of Judea. We won’t meet Joseph the carpenter face to face — an elusive man in the novel as he is in the bible, but that he is an honourable man from his stoic composure and humility. We see Mary, but we don’t know much about her aside from her beauty. Some gaps are best left for the reader’s own thoughts or other texts to overcome (like say, the bible).
Still, it is a work speculation. We follow the course of one of the wise men, Balthasar, the Egyptian royalty who’s an instrumental part of the novel and to Ben-Hur’s arc. But we were given by Wallace, Balthasar’s daughter, a person of ambiguous intentions who was also an essential part of the plot. However, the fictional speculations of historical characters is the liberty of the author, and we must forgive the author for embellishments if these contrivances are of the essence of the book.
As a Catholic, a religion I adopted when I was a child, we don’t ask questions of how things came to be — we just take it as it is: that Jesus had always been great, that he was always going to be there to save us, that he is the king of the Jews. But what of it? What if I were a mere man during those times who only hear about this man through hearsay? That yes, the prophecies will be fulfilled, but is it really happening? And if he was going to be a king, what sort of king will he be? What sort of kingdom am I going to be in?
This ambiguity is apparent in Judah’s interpretation, that he was ready to die for the Messiah to the point that he was training his own army in a potential mutiny against Rome. That the Messiah would be the new Caesar was possible in the minds of the believers. Would he know that he would die a humble death? I have not researched on the second coming, but if the same thing happens again, would we believe?
No, I don’t think so, we are much too skeptical now, and I am much more cynical than I’d like to be. Even if we see miracles first-hand, are we going to believe our own eyes? If we see one of these miracles through TikTok, then we would immediately reject it by saying that it the trick of AI, Sora perhaps. To be on the ground where history is taking place before your eyes and to refute it outright would be tragic.
The trials of Judah Ben-Hur is the trial of Jesus of Nazareth, and our trials also. But I stand by my ground when I say that Ben-Hur is a book that might make you kinder, for it is a book about humanity, and the bounds to which that we can serve each other, to be loyal and be someone with a strength of character. Look at Simonides, who kept his master’s wealth and was more than ready to return it to Judah Ben-Hur, his master’s son and to once again become a servant. No, we seldom hold these values anymore in the age where everybody changes jobs after a couple of years, and we readily change partners by a swipe of the app, and that we have become more self-centred. Ben-Hur is a reminder that we should not be.
