Summary:
A report of the novel Ben Hur by Lew Wallace, about a man named Judah Ben Hur who lived during the same time as Jesus Christ.
Ben Hur is a novel written by Lew Wallace. It is the story of the life of a man by the name of Judah Ben Hur who lived at the same time as Jesus Christ. The conflict of this story was this story was man against man. The men were the Romans against the Jews. Also the Romans against Jesus Christ in particular.
The story begins with the events leading up to the birth of Jesus Christ. Jesus is born in Bethlehem to Mary and Joseph, and is visited by three wise men. One of whom was an Egyptian named Balthasar who is mentioned throughout the story.
After the birth of Christ, the goes to Ben Hur to his friend Messala who was Judean but had been studying in Rome. Messala was very arrogant after his visit to Rome and this made Ben Hur angry with him. Therefore they said that they weren't friends any more. One day Ben Hur was on the roof of his house watching as the procurator of Judea, Valerius Gratus, passed by when he slipped and knocked a brick off the roof. He tried to catch the lose brick but failed and it struck the procurator and he fell off of his horse. Then Messala came up and arrested Ben Hur, his mother, and his sister, Tirzah. Then they hauled the them down the road to captivity. On the way, they stopped at a well and a man stopped to give Ben Hur a drink. Little did Ben Hur know, but this man was the son of Mary, Jesus Christ.
Later on after this, Ben Hur was put on a Roman ship in the galleys as a slave. He was led by the Roman officer Arrius. Ben Hur was one of the best oarsmen on the ship because he was very strong and very capable of hard manual labor. One day when below the deck observing the oarsmen, Arrius noticed how good of a worker he was and asked about his background.
Soon, the Roman ship had an encounter with a pirate ship and the men above on the deck began fighting. Pirates were on the Roman ship and the fight was not going well. The ship began sinking, and Ben Hur got out of his chains and began swimming out to sea. While he was swimming he saw a drowning Roman, so he went to try to save him. It turns out that this drowning man was Arrius. After Ben Hur saved Arrius and they were picked up by another ship, Arrius adopted Ben Hur as his son. This way Ben Hur was a Roman and began training in the ways of a Roman soldier.
After two years Ben Hur headed back to Judea to look for his mother and his sister. He stopped and asked Simonides about his mother and sister because Simonides had been a servant of the family. Simonides did not tell Ben Hur much because he didn't recognize Ben Hur and did not know his true intentions, but he did send his servant Malluch to follow Ben Hur to see what he was really doing.
Later Ben Hur came upon an Arab man, angry at a Roman man for whipping his horses. Ben Hur later saw that he Roman man was his former friend turned enemy, Messala. Messala won the chariot race that followed. Ben Hur planned to get revenge against Messala. After the race Malluch approached Ben Hur and Ben Hur asked Malluch about the chariot races. He also told Malluch about his plan to get revenge against Messala. Ben Hur later learned that the Arab wanted to employ another rider, so Ben Hur requested the job. The Arabs name was Ilderim. Ben Hur was a skilled rider so Ilderim granted him the job.
So Ben Hur and Messala would race and Ben Hur would finally get his chance to get revenge against Messala. They both started out strong and were in going back and forth between first and second when Messala whipped one of Ben Hur's horses. This slowed Ben Hur down a bit, but he caught up to Messala and wrecked Messala's chariot. This did not kill Messala, but made it where he could never walk again. Then Ben Hur won the race. Messala then hired to guys to assassinate Ben Hur, but they failed and Ben Hur got away. He then resumed his search for his mother and sister.
The new procurator of Judea had ordered that all prisoners be checked and many were set free. It turns out that Ben Hur's mother and sister had been some of these people who had been set free. The bad thing was that the both of them had become leprous. So when they got out of prison, they went to their old house to find that someone was sleeping on their doorstep. With a closer look they realized that his person was Ben Hur. They also realized that they couldn't let him see them because he would want to touch them and then he would get leprosy too. So they went to live with the rest of the lepers.
Ben Hur became a warrior hero in the city after a fight between him and a Roman soldier. He then led other Jews in the elimination of the Romans from Judea. He trained legions of soldiers to fight against the Romans.
Later Ben Hur received a letter from Malluch and it told about some kind of king arriving that was supposed to deliver the Jews from the Romans. Ben Hur decided that he would go to meet this king. He found the man and found that his name was Jesus of Nazareth. He recognized him as the man that had given him water at the well on the way to the galleys. He also realized that this man was the Christ. Later that day Ben Hur's mother and sister were looking for this man who was said to have healing power. He was surrounded by people, but they finally got to him. He asked them if they believed, to which they answered "yes." He then healed them both. Then Esther, Simonides daughter and Ben Hur became married.
Later, this same man was accused and was sentenced to be crucified. Ben Hur went with two other soldiers to go to save him from the Roman soldiers. He was going to free this man from these people who were going to kill him for doing nothing. There was a great crowd of people from all over the world to watch this innocent man be crucified. Ben Hur, Simonides, Esther, and Balthasar went to see the crucifixion on the mountain, where after a series of events at the crucifixion, most realized that hey were wrong and this man was the Son of God.
This was a great story about a person who lived at the time of Jesus Christ. In the end the Jews continued to be persecuted by the Romans, but eventually the Romans would be conquered and the Jews would not be in control of them any more. As you can see from the story Jesus was crucified as a price for our sin.
This is the complete article, containing 1,201 words
(approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page).
