Is Eru God?

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Roa_Aoife

I can't let this go unanswered. . . .
In truth, we don't know when the fall of Satan took place, all we know is that it took place sometime before the fall of Man, and that it was indeed Satan who pled to the free-will of both Eve and Adam.

And while I am not sure how this relates to Tolkien, I can't let this go unanswered.

Actually, the Bible does not tell us it was "Satan" who instigated the Fall by messing with Eve's mind. Our contemporary concept of Satan is very much derived from New Testament sources and, even, Milton's Paradise Lost, which is a work on the Vatican's list of proscribed works for its irreglarities in dogma. In fact, satan in much of at least the Hebrew Bible is simply a minion of God who helps to do God's work by challenging people, to see if they are truly good. (He gives God the idea to make Job prove his faith.) He is not a full blown adversary until far later in Christian history.

Genesis3:1 reads:

The serpent was more crafty than any wild creature that the Lord God had made. The New English Bible: Oxford Study Edition

(The King James Bible uses "subtil" rather than "crafty" and "beast of the field" for "wild creature".)

A footnote to the study edition notes:

An ancient extrabiblical story tells how a serpent stole the plant which would have given immortality to man.It was believed that when the snake shed his skin, he was rejuvenated. . . .The idea of the serpent as a primeval adversary of God, indeed, the Devil, arose much later (See Wis.2.24).

I don't know if Tolkien would have been aware of this ancient myth about immortality, nor what his understanding of Satan was, but at least it is possible to think that he recognised the serpent was one of God's creations, just as Melkor is one of Eru's creations. Good is not good until it is actively tested and proven against its obverse.