A Sabra in Judaea: the 1959 Ben-Hur

Ruth Scodel (University of Michigan)

Hollywood toga movies typically trivialize paganism and ignore Roman philosophical culture. In Ben-Hur, Sextus tells Messalla that the new religion teaches "that God is near, in every man. It's quite profound, some of it" as though Romans would never have heard such an idea. Christianity, though, is also reduced mostly to a teaching of brotherly love accompanied by miracles. In the 1925 Ben-Hur, the final intertitle announces that Christ will live forever "in men's hearts," avoiding the resurrection completely. As part of the general simplification, Jews tend to become proto-Christian victims of Roman oppression.

In the 1959 Ben-Hur, the opening voiceover says that the Jews always remember "the promise of their prophets that one day there would be born among them a Redeemer to bring them salvation and perfect freedom." A moment later the Temple is called "the outward and visible sign of an inward and imperishable faith." This imitation of the Catechism seems to appropriate Judaism completely. Yet the film stresses Jewish, recognizably non-Christian, practices. There is a menorah in the Hur house. The hero wears a Mogen David (anachronistically) during the chariot race; he kisses a mezuzah when he comes home after the Crucifixion.

In the novel and the 1925 film, Judah raises an army to fight for Jesus before realizing that violence is not the right way. This paper will argue that the Ben-Hur is a new, "Israeli" Jew. The film emphasizes Jewish-Arab friendship and suppresses the military theme for the same reasons; it responds to the "new Jew" and to the Suez crisis.