“Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ” has never been out of print since it was first published. The book, written by a Civil War veteran who had a religious conversion in his later years, was enormously popular, as the National Endowment for the Humanities states — so much so that only “Gone With the Wind,” published in 1936, eventually overtook it on the bestseller list.
Lewis Wallace’s book and the subsequent films made from it all explore not only the themes of man’s inhumanity to man and the desire to seek vengeance but the power of kindness and forgiveness as well, which wins out in the end. Although the main character, the Jewish prince Judah Ben-Hur, is fictional, the film is true to the Bible in other areas, especially its theme of redemption that characterizes the message of Christianity.
Although meme-worthy lines such as “Hate keeps a man alive” and “We keep you alive to serve this ship” perfectly portray Judah Ben-Hur’s burning desire for vengeance, they were actually written by the 1959 film’s writers, including Gore Vidal, Karl Tunberg, and Christopher Fry, as the NEH states. But many lines in the book echo the Bible, as noted by Godtube, including those uttered by Esther, imploring Ben-Hur to forgive his enemy, Messala: “I’ve seen too much what hate can do. … But I’ve heard of a young rabbi who says that forgiveness is greater and love more powerful than hatred.”
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