"I’m Charlton Heston, I’d like to tell you a story. The tale of Ben Hur has been around for over a hundred and twenty years, it was written in the nineteenth century by a man named Lew Wallace, a Civil War general, then stationed at a remote Indiana outpost, a famous Union Commander, he fought at Shiloh, Monocacy, and Cincinnati, General Wallace was no stranger to war, he could have written stories of battle and conquest, but instead he chose to tell us a tale of faith and forgiveness, the story of a brave Hebrew Prince, and how his life was changed by Jesus Christ. In 1880 the first edition of Wallace’s novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ was published, it was the first American novel to sell more than a million copies, and in the 1890s it was made into a stage play where the famous chariot race was performed with horses on a treadmill, this production toured the nation and became a staple of the American theater. Ben Hur has also been adapted three times for film including a silent movie with Ramon Novarro and even as a musical. Widely translated into many languages, Ben Hur is a classic tale of love, forgiveness, and redemption, known throughout the world. I’m pleased to present to you the animated version of this wonderful story based on the original novel by Lew Wallace: Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ."