{"id":18172,"date":"2026-03-11T05:42:38","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T05:42:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gpbookstore.org\/articles\/uncategorized\/ben-hur-how-lew-wallace-found-faith-in-epic-fiction\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T06:05:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T06:05:14","slug":"ben-hur-how-lew-wallace-found-faith-in-epic-fiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gpbookstore.org\/articles\/positive-living\/entertainment\/books\/ben-hur-how-lew-wallace-found-faith-in-epic-fiction\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben-Hur: How Lew Wallace Found Faith in Epic Fiction"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media-youtube-player\"><iframe class=\"media-youtube-player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/CubNWHdKRr0?autoplay=1&#038;mute=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>This August, nearly 60 years after MGM\u2019s blockbuster movie, a new version of <em>Ben- Hur, <\/em>starring Jack Huston and Morgan Freeman, will reach theaters. As with a lot of major studio releases, there will be a book to accompany it, a novel with a picture of Ben-Hur himself in a chariot on the cover. But what\u2019s unusual is that this novel was originally written in 1880.<\/p>\n<p>As it happens, the author was my great-great-grandfather, Lew Wallace, and I wrote this contemporary version of his novel. Along the way, I found out a great deal about my ancestor, how he came to write his masterpiece, and how it defined his faith.<\/p>\n<p>As a little girl, I was very proud of Lew. He had been a Union general in the Civil War. He had put Billy the Kid in jail (we had a letter from the Kid hanging in our back hall). He was a diplomat and, of course, a best-selling author. Editions of <em>Ben-Hur <\/em>took up serious shelf space in our house. I even have dim memories of my parents bringing home an illustrated program from the 1959 premiere of the film starring Charlton Heston.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/gpbookstore.org\/articles\/post\/my-wife-re-wrote-ben-hur\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">READ MORE: MY WIFE REWROTE &#8216;BEN-HUR<\/a>&#8216;<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>What I didn\u2019t have was familiarity with the book that started it all, because <em>Ben-Hur <\/em>in its original version is a tough slog for today\u2019s readers. But while adapting it I not only became a great fan of the text but also came to understand the surprisingly moving backstory.<\/p>\n<p>Lew Wallace, it turns out, was a seeker\u2014one of those people whose eyes are on the horizon looking for something <em>more. <\/em>When he was young, it was adventure. He ran away from home in Indianapolis at 16 to join the Texan war for independence, but got no farther than the banks of the nearby White River. Later, as a soldier, he longed for glory, and it seemed within his grasp until the Battle of Shiloh, in April of 1862.<\/p>\n<p>He was then 34, the youngest major general in the Union Army, a striking figure on a big bay horse, in charge of the 3rd Division\u2014nearly 6,000 hardened soldiers. On the morning of the battle they were held in reserve, waiting for General Ulysses S. Grant to call them up to the field of action.<\/p>\n<p>Yet there was a long delay between Lew\u2019s receiving Grant\u2019s orders and his troops\u2019 arrival at the Union line. In fact, they got there at the close of the first day\u2019s fighting. This was Lew\u2019s disaster.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/gpbookstore.org\/articles\/post\/how-booth-saved-lincoln\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em><strong>READ MORE: HOW BOOTH SAVED LINCOLN<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Shiloh was one of the first major battles of the Civil War. The casualty numbers were appalling. In Washington, Union leaders demanded to know why Grant\u2019s troops had performed so badly. His excuse: General Wallace didn\u2019t get there in time.<\/p>\n<p>Lew claimed the orders were unclear, but that didn\u2019t matter; he was stripped of active command and the brilliant trajectory of his military career was halted. He never got over it. Years later he was still trying to clear his name. His anger and shame and shock never really died away.<\/p>\n<p>How do we know this? From <em>Ben- Hur. <\/em>The years after the Civil War were hard for Lew. After a futile military adventure in Mexico, he unenthusiastically practiced law in Indiana. By middle age he was deep in debt. His escape was writing. In 1873 he published <em>The Fair God, <\/em>a novel about Hern\u00e1n Cort\u00e9s\u2019s 1519 conquest of Mexico. The book was only moderately successful, but Lew kept writing.<\/p>\n<p>His next effort was a novella about the Magi\u2014it\u2019s easy to see how this chronic adventurer responded to the story of three men who answered a mysterious call and set out into the desert in search of a redeemer. But he put his novella aside.<\/p>\n<p>What turned that fragmentary story into a sweeping saga was a chance conversation. In 1876, Lew found himself in a train compartment with Robert Ingersoll, a superstar of the day\u2014a sought-after speaker and America\u2019s foremost agnostic. Ingersoll enjoyed grilling new acquaintances about their faith.<\/p>\n<p>Lew had considered himself a Christian, but he didn\u2019t go to church, didn\u2019t pray regularly and barely knew the Bible. He was embarrassed by Ingersoll\u2019s questions. He felt he should know more about his faith. And he decided that the best way to educate himself would be to write a novel set at the time of Christ, about a young man whose life is changed by Jesus.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/gpbookstore.org\/articles\/post\/harriet-tubman-an-inspiring-life\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em><strong>READ MORE: HARRIET TUBMAN&#8217;S INSPIRING LIFE<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p>People often forget that the novel\u2019s full title is <em>Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. <\/em>And though the film versions have tended to focus on the chariot race, Lew\u2019s book (like my version) goes beyond that to include the hero\u2019s redemptive encounters with Jesus. It was the spiritual content that launched <em>Ben-Hur <\/em>into widespread success.<\/p>\n<p>When it was first published, in 1880, Lew expected merely respectable sales figures. He went off to Constantinople (now Istanbul) to serve as U.S. Minister to the Ottoman Empire. When he came home, five years later, to his surprise and great relish, he was famous. <em>Ben-Hur<\/em>\u2019s combination of excitement and inspiration had touched thousands of readers.<\/p>\n<p>Do you remember the plot? The hero, Judah Ben-Hur, is a young prince of Israel, living in a palace in Jerusalem, when his childhood friend Messala returns from years in Rome. As boys, they were inseparable, but Rome\u2019s heavy-handed occupation of Jerusalem, along with Messala\u2019s arrogance, now comes between the young men.<\/p>\n<p>Watching a parade of Roman soldiers from his rooftop, Ben-Hur knocks loose a tile, which wounds a Roman officer. In retaliation, his mother and sister are imprisoned and he himself is carried off in chains to serve as a slave in a Roman galley. Messala does nothing to intervene and Ben-Hur spends five years belowdecks pulling an oar, nursing dreams of revenge.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/gpbookstore.org\/articles\/post\/the-surprising-saga-of-the-chained-prince\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em><strong>READ MORE: THE SURPRISING SAGA OF THE CHAINED PRINCE<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Like his hero\u2019s, Lew\u2019s life had been derailed in a shocking way. At Shiloh, his trust in a golden future was shattered. His anger and sense of outrage fuel the storytelling; Ben-Hur\u2019s bitterness is Lew\u2019s own. What\u2019s more, Ben- Hur\u2019s violent response to his grievance was one that would have been familiar to Lew, who was first and foremost a soldier. Ben-Hur\u2019s revenge during the chariot race is merciless.<\/p>\n<p>That race is not the end of the book, though. Ben-Hur continues to solve his problems with violence, leaving an impressive body count. Even his encounters with Jesus fail to change his habits until the Crucifixion, when he finally understands the message of peace. In the 1880s, as the national trauma of the Civil War receded, that was a thoroughly welcome idea to the reading public of America.<\/p>\n<p>And though Lew never did become a regular churchgoer, writing <em>Ben-Hur <\/em>nurtured his faith. His authentic belief and his reverent treatment of Jesus\u2019 message helped his book become a phenomenon.<\/p>\n<p>In an era when fiction was often frowned on, this novel that featured Jesus as a speaking character was recommended from pulpits across the country. Word-of-mouth success was followed by a play seen by millions and, ultimately, multiple film versions.<\/p>\n<p>My experience writing this new book echoed Lew\u2019s. He claimed that he lived with his characters, that they lived and spoke to him in his imagination, and my process is similar. Like my great-great-grandfather, I have imagined myself into Jesus\u2019 presence, not once but repeatedly. I have a feeling you know what I mean.<\/p>\n<p><em>For more inspiring stories, subscribe to <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.shopguideposts.org\/magazines\/guideposts-magazine.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Guideposts<\/strong><\/a> <em>magazine<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This August, nearly 60 years after MGM\u2019s blockbuster movie, a new version of Ben- Hur, starring Jack Huston and Morgan Freeman, will reach theaters. As with a lot of major studio releases, there will be a book to accompany it, a novel with a picture of Ben-Hur himself in a chariot on the cover. But [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27765,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[344],"tags":[51],"ppma_author":[1733],"class_list":["post-18172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","tag-inspirational-stories"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.6 (Yoast SEO v27.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Ben-Hur: How Lew Wallace Found Faith in Epic Fiction - Guideposts Articles<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ben-Hur: How Lew Wallace Found Faith in Epic Fiction\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This August, nearly 60 years after MGM\u2019s blockbuster movie, a new version of Ben- Hur, starring Jack Huston and Morgan Freeman, will reach theaters. 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