Ben-Hur is a story of a fictional hero named Judah Ben-Hur, a Jewish nobleman who was falsely accused and convicted of an attempted assassination of the Roman governor of Judaea and consequently enslaved by the Romans. He becomes a successful charioteer.
The novel intertwines the life of Jesus with that of a fictional protagonist, the young Jewish prince named Judah Ben-Hur, who suffers betrayal, injustice, and brutality, and longs for a Jewish king to vanquish Rome.
Not very. While many details are correct, there is one glaring error: the Roman admiral Quintus Arrius would not have been granted a triumph after defeating the pirates.
Ben-Hur followed the procession to Calvary and was one of the many people to witness the crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ. In the moments before Jesus died he shared a vision with Ben-Hur to convince the young man that it was his will that this all happen and that Ben-Hur allow the crucifixion to proceed.
It was based, of course, on American writer Lew Wallace's 1880 adventure novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, which had already been filmed as a silent epic, under the same title, in 1925. (Then as now, remakes were big business in Hollywood.)
The chariot race required 15,000 extras on a set constructed on 18 acres of backlot at Cinecitta Studios outside Rome. Tour buses visited the set every hour. Eighteen chariots were built, with half being used for practice. The race took five weeks to film.
Although Judah Ben Hur is a fictional character created by General Lew Wallace in his novel, there was a Ben Hur in the Bible. In First Kings 4:1–19, there were chief officials appointed by Solomon, king if Israel, to supply provisions to the court.
(at around 3h 10 mins) Christ is always seen from the back, but when He is condemned to death He is facing Pilate and His face is obscured by a shadow added optically in post production when William Wyler determined that actor Claude Heater's face was too clearly seen, even at a distance.
The Bible in Exodus 38:22 states explicitly Hur's descendants: "And Bezalel son of Uri, son of Hur...", but not directly his parental lineage, except that he was from the tribe of Judah. According to Rabbinic tradition, Hur was the son of Miriam, thus Moses and Aaron's nephew.
Several actors were offered the role of Judah Ben-Hur before it was accepted by Charlton Heston. Burt Lancaster stated he turned down the role because he found the script boring and belittling to Christianity. Paul Newman turned it down because he said he didn't have the legs to wear a tunic.
However, the film failed to generate the same kind of excitement as the Heston epic. The filmmakers had some success attracting faith-based consumers, but couldn't grow the audience beyond the devout. Kids stayed away, critics lobbed bombs, and secular consumers took a hard pass.
In writing the book, Wallace heavily researched the Bible and other books that described the world of Judea in the first century and took great pains in making everything in Ben-Hur as accurate as possible, right down to the differences in design between Persian, Greek, and Roman chariots.
But the story is fiction, and its main character, Ben-Hur in this account, is not found in the Bible. The only actual person named Ben-Hur in the Bible was Solomon's high official in charge of supplying food and provisions needed by the royal court for one month each year.
In Hebrew the word "bén" means son. In the King James Version Bible, referring to Solomon's district leaders, he is mentioned as "...the son of Hur.", confirming he was 'Judah son of Hur'. The name Hur appears a few times in the Bible, most notably as one of the companions of Moses and Aaron.
It's a name thought to be derived from words for liberty, nobility, whiteness, or a hole or cavern. ( harar - a central source of heat) it has a different meaning in Arabic. Hur is one of the two men who held up Moses' arms during the Israelites' battle against the Amalekites.
As filming progressed, Heater was given more time in front of the camera and a few lines, but British law at the time forbid Jesus to speak or his face to be seen if he were a “secondary character.” So, Heater as Jesus appears only from behind, as when he gives water to Charlton Heston's enslaved Judah Ben-Hur.
And since it's a novel, that means the tale of Ben-Hur is 100 percent fiction, wholly created by Wallace. So what is Jesus doing in the story? Ben-Hur is considered a Christian novel, perhaps the most influential one of all time. It uses the fictional character of Judah Ben-Hur to work as an allegory for Jesus' life.
The four beautiful white horses – the Andalusians – that were given to Ben Hur by Ilderim, were named after stars in Arabic – Aldebaran, Altair, Rigel and Antares, all foals of the lovely mare Mira.
He is sent to be a slave, and his mother and sister are imprisoned. Years later he returns, wins a chariot race against Messala, and is reunited with his now leprous mother and sister. The mother and sister are cured on the day of the Crucifixion, and the family is converted to Christianity.
There was, from the start, something monumental, something reminiscent of Mount Rushmore, about Heston with his 6ft 3in height and chiselled features. He could be angry, threatening and cruel, but he couldn't be commonplace, diffident or funny.
