The Lord of the Bible?

[Macalaure]

I start to get the feeling we're all talking past each other.

Originally Posted by Mansun

More to the truth is that some characters do have a Christ-like aura about them, so one may be entitled to question whether Tolkien was heavily influenced by characters in the Bible in is works.

What exactly do you mean by 'Christ-like aura'. I can't do much with this term.
As many have stated, Tolkien was a Christian and thus of course not only influenced by the characters of the bible, but by the bible itself and its mediated values and ethics (not that these are unambiguous). Surely you can find traces of it in LotR and Silmarillion. The question is: are these traces intentional refers to the bible or just came about because their writer was a faithful Christian? Given Tolkien's dislike for allegory, I think we can rule this out.

Of all the Good free folk in Middle-Earth, Elrond to my mind represents Good better than anyone else (save Gandalf the White perhaps).

Just a few more examples as to why I think of Elrond as a Christ-like figure. He is a master of healing, & has command of nature in his valley. One might almost say, he can perform miracles to an extent. He is also a true symbol for Good in Middle-Earth, lord of the elves.

Whether Elrond or Gandalf are the best representatives for Good in the LotR is debatable, but okay.
But I don't think that being a symbol for Good alone qualifies for making a character Christ-like. Though I don't believe in him, Jesus to me represents a very specific kind of good: the Redeemer, mainly. This is a quality I don't see in Elrond at all, and only to a very small extend in Mithrandir (Frodo comes closest, to me). Many of the good characters in LotR have one or the other similarity to Jesus (Legolas did walk on water on Caradhras, didn't he? ), naturally, because the idea of Good that Tolkien had based itself on his Christian belief. But a copy of Jesus, or any other bible character, does not exist in the book.

I for one believe that were it not for his experiences of the World Wars, as well as his interest in Christianity, the LOTR would not have been as it is today. It is possible that he may just have ended up with a longer but comparable tale to The Hobbit.

Your first statement is self-evident, of course. But the second, well, that is a big may in there. I guess that by 'comparable to The Hobbit' you mean: worse. This is pretty unanswerable. It would have been different, of course. Who can say for sure it wouldn't have been better?

Likening characters & past events to the LOTR is all about opinions, where often there is no definitive answer. If there was, then there would be no point in most threads on this website existing. Most of Tolkien's work appears to show ambiguity in order to stimulate interest.

I resolutely disagree. An endless exchange of opinions without goal is pointless and boring, in my mind. There might not be a definitive answer, but that shouldn't keep us from searching for one. We can at least always discard opinions which are faulty.
(I'm not suggesting yours in this thread is by this)

Originally Posted by Macalaure

I resolutely disagree. An endless exchange of opinions without goal is pointless and boring, in my mind. There might not be a definitive answer, but that shouldn't keep us from searching for one. We can at least always discard opinions which are faulty.
(I'm not suggesting yours in this thread is by this)

I believe continuous exchanging of opinions is what helps us get to the ultimate goal - to understand Tolkien's works better by learning new things (so long as they are worthwhile arguements). Ridiculing opinions, to my mind, is the wrong approach. A balanced arguement is probably the best method. Agreeing or disagreeing is acceptable. But discarding???

[Macalaure]

Originally Posted by me

I start to get the feeling we're all talking past each other.

I should keep to my own words. I don't think we actually disagree. What you call the ultimate goal to understand Tolkien's works better I called searching for answers even if there might be none - and by this understanding Tolkien's works better.

Originally Posted by Mansun

Ridiculing opinions, to my mind, is the wrong approach. A balanced arguement is probably the best method.

If you felt like I ridiculed your opinion then I apologise - honestly. That was not my intention at any rate.

Agreeing or disagreeing is acceptable. But discarding???

If you're able to prove an opinion wrong or incoherent, then discarding it is the only thing left to do. (Take an absurd example: "In my opinion elf women had beards." is a wrong opinion) In reality, sadly, one can usually achieve little more than rendering an opinion implausible, if at all.

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

Originally Posted by Lalwende

It is also a shaky argument which in order to accept ourselves, we first have to accept that Christianity is the only acceptable belief and that all others are just 'little copies' of it, and their followers are really just Christians. News - they're not.

If we can suspend disbelief into declaring that Gandalf is Gandalf and not just a conglomeration of words on paper, surely we can suspend disbelief on religion long enough to think [openly]?

Mark, that was a fantastic post. Don't just feel free to expound, know that I'm sitting here hoping that you will. I don't know enough about Christianity to do a credible job of it. Right now, for me, it's all rather like spotting a blue bird and saying "Hey, that looks a bit like the sky." Sure, in thinking, they are inextricably connected: yes, on the surface they share a color, but that is merely illusionary. Looking more deeply, one survives within the other. Talk about attachment.

*uncomfortable silence*

So that parallel just worked way too well for comfort. I'm going to class now and thinking about fixing the ozone. That's easy.

[davem]

What I don't get is why, if people want to know about Christianity they don't just read the Bible - is that book so difficult or so boring that the only way to make sense of it is to read it in the 'light' of LotR.

I begin to wonder whether its not a case of trying to find the Bible in LotR but of trying to find LotR in the Bible...

[Mister Underhill]

Back open for business.

[Bêthberry]

One of the very interesting aspects of reading is finding connections and places where the text resonates with us as readers. This happens as we read. The very process of reading is not a passive 'act upon me text as I empty my mind' but one of engagement, trying out ideas, guessing where things will go, trying to imagine what will happen to various characters, seeing parallels. It isn't an academic exercise in source hunting or breaking apart a story, but a coming together to create greater richness.

This is the pleasure of reading. Sometimes of course our own fantasy takes flight and we can learn how to step back and say, 'well, did I get that right?' Or, 'will someone else be interested in this?'

The point which interested me in Mansun's first post is that I did not see some of the parallels he did. Never in a million years would I see Elrond as he did. And so I posted why the parallel didn't work for me.

This is what I see as being valuable in a thread like this: examining under what conditions parallels apply and when not. I'm as liable as any reader to see connections that might not pertain or apply. I remember mentioning to Estelyn Telcontar the story of Orpheus placed in the heavens as recompense for his great grief over the failure of his guest and thinking this would be an interesting parallel for Frodo, sent West as recompense of his failure to heal. Estelyn said she thought the analogy worked best with Eärendil . Of course!

This is why I think it is less germane to argue authorial intention (although there are many complex reasons for suggesting that authors do not hold the final say on what a text means--philosophical reasons which have nothing to do with denying religious belief, I might add) and more interesting simply to discuss how ideas help us see a text in a fuller light.

Sometimes we actually learn from our reading by making connections even if those connections aren't "there" in the text.

I never thought of Minas Tirith as the holy city, but there is a great deal of cultural meaning ascribed to the idea of a holy city. I think it is a valuable process to consider if that applies to the White City. Maybe in the end some of us accept it and others don't, but surely we learn more about not only LotR and literary/mythological culture but also about how we read in the process.

What holy cities are there in pagan stories? And what trees? Of course there is Yggdrasil, the world tree.

Sometimes our reading can be blinkered--if that is the best word--by our lack of knowledge of other stories and talking about other stories with a similar theme or character or event can enhance our pleasure.

Okay, pontificating over!

[Raynor]

It seems to me that my comparison of Minas Tirith to a holy city (I had Jerusalem in mind) proved rather hard to swallow; I still find it nice (pets it) . One of the things that is interesting though is that MT has seven levels (I would speculate each one has a main gate), while Jerusalem has seven hills (according to the jewish work Pirke de-Rabbi Eliezer, but not only) and seven gates.

One a lesser note: though not very common, the Christian church has been imagined as a boat also (Noah's ark, as according to St. Augustine of Hippo); in the description of Minas Tirith, we have this:

Originally Posted by Minas Tirith, RotK

For partly in the primeval shaping of the hill, partly by the mighty craft and labour of old, there stood up from the rear of the wide court behind the Gate a towering bastion of stone, its edge sharp as a ship-keel facing east. Up it rose, even to the level of the topmost circle, and there was crowned by a battlement; so that those in the Citadel might, like mariners in a mountainous ship, look from its peak sheer down upon the Gate seven hundred feet below.

I just thought it would be nice to bring this up too.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Raynor

I wouldn't agree; Odin is, ultimately, a good deity (right?), while Sauron is, for the most part, evil. [I mean, all supreme deities have an aspect which is destructive; but there are certain destructions which are not evil in and of themselves (such as death, which is ultimately, a blessing) while other such acts stem from nihilism, rebellion, thirst for ultimate power.]

No, Odin is Odin. He is good and bad. The point I was making was that Tolkien took Odin's two distinct sides and gave the good aspects to Gandalf and the evil ones to Sauron. Quite 'neat' actually, if both characters are supposed to be equals in terms fo power. Maybe a bit like Odin had had a nightmare where his dual personality had been scrapping with itself?

And on death, I don't think Tolkien viewed it as a blessing, but as an inevitable. He showed that those who could accept it as an inevitable and resign themselves to it could find some comfort in that when the time came (e.g. Theodens words about going to his forefathers), compared with those who resisted it and could not accept the inevitability (and even tried to stave it off!). By no means all mortals found death to be a 'blessing', some of the best even lingered, e.g. Arwen.

Originally Posted by Raynor

It seems to me that my comparison of Minas Tirith to a holy city (I had Jerusalem in mind) proved rather hard to swallow; I still find it nice (pets it) . One of the things that is interesting though is that MT has seven levels (I would speculate each one has a main gate), while Jerusalem has seven hills (according to the jewish work Pirke de-Rabbi Eliezer, but not only) and seven gates.

I wouldn't take the seven levels/seven hills parallel as good evidence as there are also seven hills in Sheffield (and Rome, but it aint a patch on Yorkshire). I think its much better to think of Jerusalem as a metaphor for the concept of a city or a state of mind, as Blake did.

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

And what trees? Of course there is Yggdrasil, the world tree.

There is the tree in the Volsunga Saga into which Odin thrusts the sword. Tolkien drew profusely from that saga as discussed on Rune's Tolkien and Norse Mythology.

Originally Posted by Raynor

Well, personally, I find the idea a bit of a stretch, that Odin would be the source of both Gandalf and Sauron

Not necessarily. As mentioned, Tolkien borrowed ideas, themes, even blatantly obvious situations (Glaurung and Fafnir, anyone?). Why should it be particularly harder to think he might have borrowed a character or a character type? That was my original argument in favor of Christ figures. If a writer can 'steal' a theme, why can't he 'steal' a character type?

I don't remember enough about Odin off of the top of my head to draw legitimate parallels, or I would. If nobody else beats me to it, I might try for it later tonight.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Feanor of the Peredhil

Not necessarily. As mentioned, Tolkien borrowed ideas, themes, even blatantly obvious situations (Glaurung and Fafnir, anyone?). Why should it be particularly harder to think he might have borrowed a character or a character type? That was my original argument in favor of Christ figures. If a writer can 'steal' a theme, why can't he 'steal' a character type?

That's because they're archetypes (epic and fantasy are stuffed with these figures), and shared across the cultures and the ages. He wasn't stealing anything that hasn't already been stolen. Have a quick look up on Wikipedia about Jung and Joseph Campbell (if you don't know about them already, how dare I presume?!), and it'll give you a good overview. That stuff's a revelation, particularly for the aspiring writer or artist.

[Raynor]

Originally Posted by Feanor

Not necessarily. As mentioned, Tolkien borrowed ideas, themes, even blatantly obvious situations (Glaurung and Fafnir, anyone?). Why should it be particularly harder to think he might have borrowed a character or a character type? That was my original argument in favor of Christ figures. If a writer can 'steal' a theme, why can't he 'steal' a character type?

Originally Posted by Lalwende

the Odinic wanderer that I think of.

There are some traits of Odin which would never be reflected in Gandalf; I haven't read anything past Voluspa, but it seems to me that Gandalf would never sacrifice an eye, or a human, for the sake of wisdom. He already had it in him, he just needed to rediscover it; moreover, Gandald isn't bound to a bodily form (IIRC, Odin is slain in the final battle and that's it for him, correct me if I'm wrong), doesn't have children, and esspecially wouldn't kill one of his his child Hoth who _unwillingly_ killed Baldr.

Originally Posted by Child of the 7th Age

Yes, I know about original sin and such in a Christian context, but this is a situation where the very fabric of Arda has been contaminated by Morgoth. That didn't happen in the bible.

Well, that is a matter of debate; we have the tree of knowledge of good and evil - therefore evil existed at least theoretically. Furthermore, the cursing of Adam ("cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life" Genesis) and the marring of Men are pretty similar, esspecially in their effects on how life is perceived. There is also the fact that the fallen angel offers Christ all the riches of the world. I would also note that Eru's Creation is good at its core:

Originally Posted by Myths Transformed, HoME X

For which reason it is said that whereas there is now great evil in Arda and many things therein are at discord, so that the good of one seemeth to be the hurt of another, nonetheless the founda¬tions of this world are good, and it turns by nature to good, healing itself from within by the power that was set there in its making; and evil in Arda would fail and pass away if it were not renewed from without: that is: that comes from wills and being [sic] that are other than Arda itself.

which is in accordance with the Atrabeth

Originally Posted by Note 10, Atrabeth Finrod ah Andreth, HoME X

'Matter' is not regarded as evil or opposed to 'Spirit'. Matter was wholly good in origin. It remained a 'creature of Eru' and still largely good, and indeed self-healing, when not interfered with: that is, when the latent evil intruded by Melkor was not deliberately roused and used by evil minds.

Originally Posted by C7A

Ah, if only we could ask him!

Well, he did admit in the BBC interview that Eru is God

G: Is he the One?...

T: The One, yes.