Richard's Analysis of "Ben-Hur"

Richards Establishes that the film is structured around the conflict of values between Christianity and the imperial Rome. I don't exactly agree with this, from my understanding Christianity didn't began until several years after Jesus died. Although he had followers in the film, and he helped Ben-Hur have a change of heart,  I wouldn't exactly say that Rome was having conflicts with Christianity  since it was barely starting. I would say that the conflict was more between Rome and Jews, something that proves this is when Messala says " To be a Roman is to rule the world- to be a Jew is to crawl in the dust". He specifically said Jew, he never mentions Christianity. I have not seen the 1959 remake so I can't really agree or disagree with his thoughts about the 1926 version being the better film, however he mentions that the remake doesn't have some of the events and characters from the book like the 1926 film does. I would assume that based on that the 1926 film is better. I agree with Richards on the fact that the 1926 version film is gruesome, at first I didn't agree but when I started thinking about the previous movies we have watched and the fact that this movie was made in the 20's, I realized that it was in fact gruesome compared to other films from that time.  I also agree with the fact that this was a great film and no one should miss it regardless of of age ore religion.