who's the oldest?

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

It is well known that the Elves awoke the tree-shepherds, therefore making all ents younger than elves, and therefore younger than any Maiar on Middle-Earth.

Not as well known as you might think. In reading my brand-spanking new copy of The Two Towers, I found the part where Treebeard is talking about the being fond of Elves. He says that the Elves cured them from dumbness, but he doesn't mention being woken by them. And in the Silm. it says:

Behold! When the Children awake, then the thought of Yavanna will awake also...

Which is saying that Elves and Ents came into being at the same time.

However, that's not the point of this thread (not exactly, in any case), so here is my related contribution:

Fangorn claims to be the oldest living thing on/in Middle Earth, and Bombadil claims to be the eldest. He never mentions 'eldest living', and so my idea is that he is not truly alive in the sense of the word. A part of life is death; it completes the circle, however Bombadil can't die (or at least he won't until all else has), and so I surmise that he is not truly alive. As Bombadil says, he 'is', but that neither confirms nor denies life, for there are many things in the world that 'are', and yet are not living. A dead tree for instance still plays a crucial part in nature, and it undeniably 'is', and yet it is not living.

Nobody really knows what Bombadil is; all they have to go with is a sneeze-worth of information provided by Tolkien, and whatever they come up with on their own. Theories range from him being Earth (which although holds life, is not really alive), to being an embodiment of Eru (please don't yell at me, I know this has been proven wrong by Tolkien himself), but even if it were so, is Iluvitar 'alive', as we understand the word? Not really. No matter what Bombadil is, we don't know that he is actually a living being, although we do know that he 'is'. Fangorn however is most definately alive, very old, and not infallible. He calls Saruman young, he doesn't know what hobbits are, and he lives a long way away from Bombadil. It may be possible that he is unaware that Bombadil exists and is older than him. Just my confused jumble of thoughts. It makes sense to me at least...

Fea