The Real Story of Ben-Hur's 'Tale of the Christ'

The Real Story of Ben-Hur's 

'Tale of the Christ'

By Dawn Goeb and Wendy Griffith

CBN News

Friday, April 03, 2015

CRAWFORDSVILLE, Ind. -- For many, watching the movie "Ben-Hur" has become an Easter tradition. The 1959 blockbuster, starring Charlton Heston, made history with a record 11 Academy Awards.
Now, the 1925 silent version is making a comeback. But what many may not know is that Hollywood didn't create this classic story.

The idea came from the best-selling novel, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, published in 1880. The book tells the story of a life-altering encounter between a first century Jewish prince and Jesus of Nazareth.

The author is Lew Wallace -- a true renaissance man.

Without Real Conviction

"He tried different things," said Larry Paarlberg, director of the Lew Wallace Study and Museum in Crawfordsville, Ind.

"He loved to paint, he loved to write, he loved to do creative things, he loved the military," he explained. "He became a prosecuting attorney; he was in the legislature for a term."

Wallace showed a talent for writing early in life. He learned about the Bible from his favorite teacher. And while he didn't care for church, the story of the three wise men fascinated him.

As Wallace later wrote in his autobiography, "Little did I dream then what those few verses were to bring me -- that out of them Ben-Hur was one day to be evoked."

In the meantime, Wallace's writing took a back seat to other priorities. He fought in the Mexican-American War and the Civil War, becoming the youngest major general in the Union Army. He also married and had a son.

Throughout the years, he kept coming back to the biblical account of the three wise men. So, he decided to write a magazine article about them.

"I had no convictions about God or Christ. I neither believed nor disbelieved in them… Yet when the work was fairly begun, I found myself writing reverentially, with awe," Wallace wrote.

His Own 'Tale of Christ'

Still, Wallace had much to learn about God -- as he found out in a chance encounter with a well-known atheist named Robert Ingersoll.

Lew Wallace & Robert Ingersoll

"Robert Ingersoll knew far more about the Bible," Paarlberg said."You don't preach against something unless you know it. And so he just filleted Lew."

Walking alone to his hotel that night, Wallace realized the time had come to form his own opinion on the subject of religion.

"My ignorance of it was painfully a spot of deeper darkness in the darkness," he wrote. "I was ashamed of myself."

Paarlberg sees this as a pivotal moment in Wallace's life.

"He realized at that point, 'I have no business submitting this story for publication. I don't know what I was talking about… I need to do the research; I need to learn the Bible; I need to learn the story," he said.

Early in his research, Wallace created the fictional character of Judah Ben-Hur, a witness to the real-life events leading up to the death and resurrection of Christ.

Wallace soon began to see God through the eyes of his character.

"Long before I was through with my book, I became a believer in God and Christ," the author wrote.

A Classic Masterpiece

The original manuscript of Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ is kept at The Lilly Library on the campus of Indiana University.

Wendy Griffith with original manuscript

Curator of Manuscripts Cherry Dunham Williams gently lifted the tall stack of papers from the special box where it is stored to show CBN News. There are 650 pages, hand-written in purple ink.

When Wallace delivered his manuscript to Harper & Brothers in 1880, they had no idea it would make publishing history. The book became the best-selling novel of the 19th century and has been translated into more than 40 languages. It has never been out of print.

Paarlberg said Ben-Hur had a big impact on the post-Civil War country.

"It sort of was a touch point that people could understand and relate to. People were looking for ways to reconcile, to come together," he explained. "They were exploring, 'How can there be a God that would allow a war to happen like this?'"

Soon after its publication, letters began flooding in, including one from President James Garfield.

"With this beautiful and reverent book you have lightened the burden of my daily life," Garfield wrote.

A Lasting Heritage

Wallace's own burdens had always been lightened outdoors. He did most of his writing under what came to be known as the Wallace Beech Tree.

"Its spreading branches droop to the ground, weighed down by their wealth of foliage, and under them I am shut in as by the walls of a towering green tent," he wrote of it in his autobiography.

The Wallace Beech is no longer there; it died shortly after Wallace did and was replaced by a bronze statue of the author.

What does remain from Wallace's time is a building that he dreamed about for decades, but never had the resources to build -- until the success of Ben-Hur.

Wallace designed an extraordinary 19th century "man cave," a free-standing building that holds books, paintings, and memorabilia from his life.

"Lew built this as his private retreat," Paarlberg said.

Wallace spent his golden years in Crawfordsville, writing every day until his death in 1905.

His grave marker is inscribed with a quote from Ben-Hur, by one of his beloved wise men: "I would not give one hour of life as a Soul for a thousand years of life as a man."

Watch CBN News video here: Ben-Hur author

Slavery: Not as Black and White as History Reports

By Dawn Goeb and Charlene Aaron

CBN News

Tuesday, February 24, 2015

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By most accounts, Dr. Bertice Berry has led a successful life. Born in poverty, she earned a doctorate, and became a nationally syndicated talk show host and best-selling author. Along the way, though, she made what she calls one of her "greatest errors."

CBN News visited Dr. Berry at her beautiful home outside of Savannah, Georgia.

In her dining room, an inviting place lined with overflowing bookcases, she read aloud from her novel Redemption Song.

"Old man Hunn wasn't so old then," she read. "He was out hunting my mama and me. He wasn't a real catcher. Others caught slaves for money. He caught 'em for keeps."

The villain of her book, an evil slaveholder, is named after a real man: John Hunn.

"John Hunn -- I knew the story, I heard the name, that he owned the plantation that our family lived on during slavery, " Berry explained.

Despite her mother's repeated objections, Berry believed Hunn owned her ancestors.

"Especially in the 60s and 70s you would say," she takes on a militant voice, 'Back when we were slaves, you know, that was my slave name,' and my mother would say, 'We were not slaves!' I'm like, 'All right. You have a slave fantasy.' Delaware was a slave state," she argued.

Villian or Hero?

But one day she came upon the PBS documentary "Whispers of Angels," about the Underground Railroad.

CBN News played a clip from the film for her, where the narrator states, "Burris eventually guided them to the home of the young Quaker, John Hunn, in Middletown."

Hunn was born in Camden, Delaware, and grew up a member of the Religious Society Friends, or Quakers.

Mike Richards, with the Camden Friends Meeting, has become an expert on Hunn.

"He became known as the chief engineer of the Underground Railroad in Delaware," he said. "So he was very well known. And people that were helping the slaves escape would say, 'Go see John Hunn.'"

Hunn helped as many as 200 fugitive slaves make their way to freedom.

Robin Krawitz is program director of Delaware State University's Graduate Program in Historic Preservation and has studied Hunn for the past 20 years.

She learned that his father, Ezekiel Hunn, also helped runaway slaves escape.

"John Hunn's father and uncle were the owners of this property; they inherited it in 1794," Krawitz explained as she showed CBN News around Wildcat Manor on a cold winter day.

Pointing to the frozen river, she explained that Ezekial Hunn had funded "an African American boatman to ferry people from here and from the St. John's River over to New Jersey, which was the closest point of freedom."

His son, however, had other plans as a young man.

In a private home owned by a descendant of John Hunn, we had the rare opportunity to see a beautiful oil painting of him at age 22. At about the time of the portrait, he finished his training to be a silk merchant.

When he went to visit his older sister, Patience, a devout Quaker, she took one look at his fancy clothes and said, "Throw off thy Babylonish garment!"

"She basically read him the riot act," Krawitz chuckled telling the story. "She believes Patience was saying, in essence, 'Come back to the faith; be who you are.'"

Underground Railroad

And he did. Hunn was 27 years old when he became involved with the Underground Railroad.

On a cold, snow-covered day, he was washing his hands at a pump outside his home, when he saw an unfamiliar covered wagon approach.

Krawitz picks up the story from here.

"There was a group of people who were escaping enslavement from Queen Anne's County in Maryland… traveling all night in a wagon and on foot," she said. "He brought the women and children into the house, and then the men went out into the barn. And they were all housed and warmed up and fed to get them ready to continue on their journey."

But a neighbor turned them in to the local magistrate. While the fugitives eventually made their way to freedom, Hunn was prosecuted in federal court.

Under the Fugitive Slave Law, it was a federal crime to assist runaway slaves, and slave owners could sue anyone who did so.

The New Castle Courthouse looks the same today. Looking around, one can imagine the scene when Hunn was brought before Judge Roger Taney.

Taney would later write the infamous Dred Scott decision, ruling that African Americans did not have civil rights protected by the U.S. Constitution.

Hunn didn't contest the charges, and Judge Taney imposed a heavy fine. Hunn's world fell apart. He lost everything. His family had to move in with relatives, and his 6-year-old son died after a long illness.

Still, he steadfastly continued his work.

"I think his calling was so strong, and he felt this issue was such an important issue, that he didn't feel he could stop, that he had to do this," Richards told CBN News.

Hunn died at age 76. He was buried in the small graveyard behind the Camden Friends Meeting House. On his deathbed, he ordered his son to burn all records of his activity in the Underground Railroad.

"I ask no other reward for any efforts made by me in the cause than to feel that I have been of use to my fellow men. No other course would have brought me peace of mind," he wrote.

"It was a shock," Berry said. "I've used this man's name, who was the southernmost conductor on the Underground Railroad, who remained hidden, the same way we do with everything -- we think everything is black and white, good and evil, sin and righteous."

"You know, no! No. You know, there's so much more to every story if you just look a little further," she said.

Setting the Record Straight

And that she did. Determined to set the record straight, Berry wrote The Ties That Bind: A Memoir of Race, Memory, and Redemption.

She imagines what she would say to him, given the opportunity.

"Dude, you are so cool; thank you, and while the laws are against you now, years from now everyone will know that you're right," she said.

Hunn's son, Jonathan, grew up to be governor of Delaware, where he ratified the 13th Amendment of the Constitution, abolishing slavery.