Imagine no religion

[Pitchwife]

Originally Posted by skip spence

Legate, there is a text in one of the HoME volumes, think it is X, where a post LotR Tolkien tries to tie in his sub-creation to the Christian tradition, much in the same way he tries to tie in his world with modern scientific knowledge, for instance that life could not have existed prior to the Sun and so on. Read that one?

That would be Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth (in HoME X indeed), a dialogue between Finrod Felagund and Andreth, a mortal Wise Woman, on the subject of Mannish mortality. Appended to it is Adanel's Tale, a Middle-earth version of the Fall of Man, dealing with Eru's interaction with the first Men shortly after their Awakening, their seduction by Morgoth and finally the repentance of some of them (the fathers and mothers of the Edain) and their search for escape from the Shadow. Athrabeth itself also contains some foreshadowing of the Incarnation, hinting that Eru himself might one day enter into Arda to set things right.
If I remember correctly, Tolkien ended up rejecting the latter as being too much like 'a parody of Christianity' (his own words), and I tend to agree with him there. Still, I wouldn't want to miss the whole; it's a very moving piece of writing - not the least because it contains, as far as I'm aware of, the only love-story between a male elf and a mortal woman (rather than the other way round) in the whole Legendarium.