Alatar wrote:
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Note that our world (that includes Christianity) and Tolkien's secondary world are at best parallel. As much as I would choose it to be so, the Sil and LotR do not document 'pre-Abrahamic' events. If you really think about it, Tolkien's world actually excludes Christ as there is no need for such a saviour. No Adam, no need for a Second one.
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Obviously, I agree that Arda is not our real world. However, does Tolkien's world really "exclude" a Christ-figure? Is there no Adam? Tolkien intentionally left the awakening of Men out of the Silmarillion; it seems to me that he intentionally left room for the Eden myth. Moreover, he refers in
Letters to the first "fall of Men" as an event not actually depicted in the Legendarium. In fact, he did at one point write a short account of that fall - presented in the guise of Adanel's ancient Edainic lore. Although that story is certainly not exactly the same as that told in Genesis, it does seem to fill the same theological role. And then, of course, we have the Athrabeth, with its Messianic hints (a work that is quite connected with Adanel's tale of the Fall).
I think that Tolkien
did, at least at some points in his life, consider Arda to be a fictional version of the real world in pre-Abrahamic times.
Of course, this is a separate question from the one that littlemanpoet and Davem debate - i.e. whether elements of Christian theology are explicitly present in Tolkien's works.