The atrocity of the Akallabêth

[Hookbill the Goomba]

Major premise: Tolkien intended his portrayal of Eru to be like the Christian God

As I pointed out earlier; the Atlantis myth from which Numenor likely comes from is not attributed to the Judo-Christian God so we cannot deduce any opinions on said Deity from the Numenor story. We here have two conflicting things; an overall idea of the supreme being, and Tolkien's desire for an Atlantis story.

The Christian God is either cruel or capricious (because of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah)

This has got me thinking. It has always seemed to me that the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah was due to the people of those cities being incredibly blasphemous and what not. Then one looks at Numenor; they were (at Sauron's prodding) worshiping Melkor. Weather or not this was the main reason for the destruction of Numenor or not, I do not know, but I think it was probably one of the larger straws that eventually broke the camel's back, so to speak.

I do not tend to think of Eru equaling YHVH, but being, if not inspired by, at least an attempt to portray some aspects of him. The Bible being so vast and having, to use a Rabbinical phrase, so many faces, any aspects that get emphasised by a writer are immediately argued away by arguments for other aspects. Tolkien, I like to think, probably didn't want the haste of arguing. Tolkien (neither J.R.R or Christopher) were (or are) the biggest brains on the planet and we cannot expect them to know everything about YHVH, so creating a character inspired or intended to represent or however you want to say it, by him is a difficult process to go through. They probably left things unsaid about him in order to avoid confrontation or controversy.

If I've said some of this before, I apologise.