6/10/2023 0 Comments Jesus and the scoundrel christThe Last Temptation: Willem Dafoe in Martin Scorsese’s film adaptation of Nikos Kazantzakis's novel. The Last Temptation By Nikos Kazantzakis (1955) Nor do any of his charioteers wear wristwatches. Wallace was scrupulous in his quotations, however, only ever allowing Jesus to speak the words recorded in the King James Bible. Placing Jesus at the heart of a novel, even a novel that was a blend of fiction and religious truth, was a pretty radical departure in 1880. You wouldn’t know it from the 1959 movie starring Charlton Heston, which dropped the novel’s subtitle, but Lew Wallace’s tale – dubbed “the most influential Christian book of the 19th century” – offers parallel narratives: that of the Jewish prince Judah Ben-Hur, reduced to a galley slave, and that of his peer Jesus of Nazareth, whose gospel finally offers Ben-Hur the opportunity to reject his revenge mission in favour of peace, love and understanding. Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ By Lew Wallace (1880) “For God so loved the world,” John tells us in 3:16, “that He gave His only begotten Son.” But how would it feel, what would it mean, to discover yourself a divine being made flesh? From Norman Mailer to Anne Rice, Nikos Kazantzakis to Robert Graves, novelists have found the story of Jesus Christ irresistible.
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