Ben-Hur and Moses

Last night, Rogers internet went down for an hour or so. To pass the time, I picked up the book about Charlton Heston and continued reading about his time filming Ben-Hur. What I hadn’t expected was this observation by the author, Marc Eliot, who suggested that Ben-Hur is a modern re-telling of the Moses story, substituting the Romans for the Egyptians. That was a revelation to me.

Although Ben-Hur was supposed to be a film based on the power and influence of Jesus Christ, there is very little Jesus in it (compared with The Ten Commandments, where Moses, also a “son” of God in a sense, is in virtually every scene)[…] Wyler’s Ben-Hur is the story of Jesus as seen through the eyes of someone who encounters him only once, before the day of his crucifixion, but whose whole life, externally and internally, changes because of it. Not surprisingly, the moment Jesus gives the enslaved Ben-Hur a sip of water is arguably the best scene in the film, certainly the most affecting (nicely echoed in reverse when Ben-Hur gives water to Jesus while he struggles to carry his cross to Calvary), because it is the most personal, with Wyler shooting it as an obvious allusion to Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam. Everything that preceded and follows it, including the chariot race scene where one could say Ben-Hur wins because the hand of God is guiding him, leads up to and comes out of that moment.

Page 171 – Charlton Heston (2017) Rebel Road Inc, New York

Heston, as Moses in The Ten Commandments, is wooden, hiding behind (and inside) the costumes and makeup of the role. In Ben-Hur, he is stripped down and emotionally vulnerable, which is why he ended up winning the Best Actor Oscar for the role.

General Lew Wallace (April 10, 1827 – February 15, 1905)

I have read an original facsimile edition of Ben-Hur, with illustrations. It seemed to me to be a great historical novel, but one that skirts the edges of the Life of Christ, while acknowledging that Jesus was a real person. And, although it also suggested that there was a person who was a Jewish Price named Judah Ben-Hur, the only major reference to Hur in the Bible goes back to Exodus, naming him as a companion of Moses and Aaron. Because Hur was a member of the tribe of Judah, Wallace naming his Prince of Judah, Judah Ben-Hur, was a stroke of genius.

However, I Chronicles calls Hur himself the father of Bethlehem.

Wikipedia

Do you see how the circle comes around again, with Jesus’ birth in a stable in Bethlehem? Hmm.

My guess is that Wallace was ‘inspired’ to make the link between a son of Hur (previously connected to Moses) and the Son of God, Jesus. Which all goes to show that Hollywood made the same connection using Charlton Heston as the actor for both these films.

Amen.