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Originally Posted by Eluchíl
If you notice there's much Norse and Celtic influence as well.
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Well, that's an interesting point. And welcome to the Downs,
Eluchíl.
Like I was saying, an interesting point. I've been reading Shippey's
Author of the Century book over the holidays, and some of the things he points out have led me back to a very basic part of the furniture in my personal cultural living room, as it were.....
Western culture is made up, by and large, of Hebrew, Greek, and Germanic (read both Teutonic and Celtic there) influences. Everything (perhaps until recently with Eastern influences gaining ground) produced in Western culture has been an admixture of these three influences. So as
davem says, Nordic deities and pagan influences are reflected in LotR; also, Christian influences are there.
One point that Shippey makes, which seems to bear directly upon this discussion, is that Tolkien could see that the Greek and Christian influences on Western culture were waning, and would continue to, and part of what we have in LotR is a presentation of Germanic culture at its best and most noble, even with the potential outlook of doom and despair found in Ragnarök: "So we have no hope; let us continue to do what is right because it is right."
Are, then, Aragorn, Gandalf, Eomer, Faramir, Frodo (a most unhobbitish hobbit) and the rest, exemplars of Germanic noble thought as it would have/could have been had there been no Hebrew/Greek overbearing influences? Who can say?
What bearing has any of this on the question first laid forth in this thread? Is Eru God? I still think so, and always have. I can however (and could before) see how others would see Eru as less the Hebrew/Christian God and more an Odin or Jove, or perhaps none of the above but Eru as described within the Legendarium, culled form the particular mind of a man heavily influenced by Germanic thought in its purist form (language and myth).