Ben-Hur: Movie vs. Book

If you haven't read the novel Ben-Hur, you owe it to yourself to do so. It is not only a ripping yarn but also an effective attempt to recreate the world of Jesus as realistically as possible. The book is full of densely detailed, carefully researched descriptions that were intended (I believe) to dispel the reader's hazy Sunday-school vision of the time of Christ and replace it with granite-hard likenesses of the sights, smells, tastes, sounds, and feelings of the first century AD. It is total immersion.

There are many important ways in which the book differs from the 1959 movie (which is excellent nonetheless). Without giving too much away, here are some of the differences that especially struck me:

1. The friendship between Ben-Hur and Messala does not have the bosom-buddy air that it has toward the start of the movie. In fact, Messala's character is quite different in the book. In the movie, he comes across as an ambitious man swept along by events and his unwillingness to rock the boat. In the book, he is much more complex, and both more Roman and more modern -- he's a man who has killed his own soul with cynicism.

2. In the chariot race of the movie, Messala goes after Ben-Hur with wheel-destroying axle spikes. In the book . . . well, let's just say that Ben-Hur is the trickier driver of the two.

3. The book has deep theological discussions that are barely touched upon in the movie, particularly as regards the nature of the Messiah.

4. In the book, Jesus does not appear in the hold of the battleship to release Ben-Hur from his chains. [Oops -- see below on this one.]

5. The movie is missing at least two central characters: Malluch, an employee of Simonides, and Iras, the daughter of Balthasar. In addition, Ben-Hur's relationship with Simonides plays a much greater role in the book than it does in the movie.

6. Ben-Hur's delay in returning to Judea after his adoption by Arrius is given a logical explanation in the book. As I recall, that issue is simply ignored in the movie.

7. The circumstances surrounding the release of Ben-Hur's mother and sister are almost entirely different.

There are many additional differences. I wish someone would put out a quality annotated edition of Ben-Hur, with notes on the intellectual and cultural history built into the book and how it has aged in the 126 years since the book was published.

Thanks to Lew Wallace for his magnificent literary achievement.

EDIT: A wise fellow at the IMDb Philosophy & Religion discussion board helpfully pointed out that, in the move, Jesus does not appear in the hold of the battleship to release Ben-Hur. In the movie, as in the book, Arrius commands that Ben-Hur not be chained. I think my memory was skewed by the fact that in the movie, Arrius's gesture causes Ben-Hur to recall a time when "another man" helped him, and the Jesus theme is played in the background.