Who has not heard of Ben-Hur? Probably everyone of us has seen the movie. It started off as a book, was made into a broadway show and then a silent movie was made at 3.9 million the most expensive movie of its time. But most of us have seen the movie version made in 1959 which won 11 oscars, 1999 saw a music version and now a live show of the epic is being planned for 22 september in France. The production will run for 5 nights and I'm sure it will be one of a kind. It is planned that the production will do a tour and I hope it comes somewhere near us so we can see Ben-Hur in real flesh and blood.Source BBC : Ben-Hur rides again in Paris show
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Problem child wrote Ben Hur: a tale of the Christ
Parents should never despair of a problem child.
Lew Wallace was one, and yet in the end, God was able to change his heart.
Born in Indiana in 1827, Lew simply had too much energy to be caged up.
In and out of scrapes, he refused to so much as whimper when whipped. He seemed to know neither fear nor how to give in.
His mother died when he was 7, and he refused to accept his 19-year-old step-mom until she nursed him through croup he had caught while living in the wild.
When he was 9, he joined a brother at a boarding school several miles away.
Hating it, he ran off and made his way home alone.
At 13, he was truant from school for twelve days, attending a Whig rally.
He became an instant hero with the Whigs when he climbed a roof and tore down a petticoat flying in mockery of Harrison, their Presidential candidate.
The only thing that tamed Lew for long was an interesting book. He devoured adventure novels and histories--and began writing his own stories.
But unsatisfied with mere words, he ran away, hoping to join the fight in Texas. It was the last straw for his dad. Firmly but kindly, he ordered 15-year-old Lew out of the home.
Lew found work with a law firm. Although he detested law, he stood for elections as a public attorney, even fist-fighting if it helped him win. Once he pulled everyone away from a rival's speech by playing the violin.
He married his sweetheart Susan Elston. Her family didn't like him, but he won her father's respect when he leapt onto a burning roof to fight a fire.
Civil War Hero
During the Civil War, Lew fought for the Union. His greatest fame as a general came when, outnumbered six to one, he held off the enemy at Monocacy long enough for the Union to move defenders to Washington, D.C.
When people realized he had saved the capitol, he was smothered with praise.
He wrote, "...a defeat did more for me than the victories I've engaged in."
He was in debt most of his adult life.
In 1878, Lew accepted appointment as the governor of lawless New Mexico, where ruthless cattle barons and badmen made life miserable for everyone else. He restored order, then left to serve as U.S. ambassador to Turkey.
Measuring Christ or Measured by Christ?
While Lew was drafting Ben Hur he had not even cared if there were an afterlife.
But as he wrote, his outlook changed.
He came to recognize that Jesus must be taken for who He says He is.
Ben-Hur had looked for a king to defeat Rome. Instead, he got a suffering Savior.
Lew saw what this meant: "It is not an easy thing to shake off in a moment the expectations nurtured through years...He [Ben-Hur] persisted, as men do yet today in measuring the Christ by himself. How much better if we measured ourselves by the Christ?"
The famous skeptic Colonel Robert Ingersoll inspired Lew to write Ben Hur!
Taking a train to Indianapolis one evening, Lew Wallace heard someone call his name. It proved to be the notorious agnostic Robert Ingersoll, who, as a colonel with the 11th Illinois Cavalry volunteers, had fought under General Wallace at Shiloh. Ingersoll invited Lew into his compartment to talk.
Lew claimed the right to choose the subject. His themes were all of a religious nature.
He gave them to Ingersoll and here is Lew's description of what happened.
He was in prime mood; and beginning, his ideas turned to speech, slowing like a heated river. His manner of putting things was marvelous;
I sat spellbound, listening to a medley of argument, eloquence, wit, satire, audacity, irreverence, poetry, brilliant antitheses, and pungent excoriation of believers in God, Christ, and Heaven, the like of which I had never heard. The speech was brought to an end by our arrival at the Indianapolis Central Station nearly two hours after its commencement.
Upon alighting from the car, we separated, he to go to a hotel, and I to my brother's, a long way up northeast of town. The street-cars were at my service, but I preferred to walk, for I was in a confusion of mind not unlike dazement.
To explain this, it is necessary now to confess that my attitude with respect to religion had been one of absolute indifference.
I had heard it argued times innumerable, always without interest. So, too, I had read the sermons of great preachers...but always for the surpassing charm of their rhetoric.
But--how strange! To lift me out of my indifference, one would think only strong affirmations of things regarded holiest would do.
Yet here was I now moved as never before, and by what?
The most outright denials of all human knowledge of God, Christ, Heaven, and the Hereafter .
Was the Colonel right?
What had I on which to answer yes or no? He had made me ashamed of my ignorance: and then--here is the unexpected of the affair--as I walked on in the cool darkness, I was aroused for the first time in my life to the importance of religion.
It only remains to say that I did as resolved, with results--first, the book Ben Hur, and second, a conviction amounting to absolute belief in God and the Divinity of Christ.
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