June 16, 2002

Christian 'Mythology'
Brett C.

A couple of articles have popped up recently dealing with the relationship between LOTR and Christianity. While I agree that Tolkien did not write in order to deliberatiely put across strongly Christian views, I think his religious beliefs [which co-incidentally closely resemble my own] did influence his ideas more than some would believe.

The conparisons between LOTR and the Bible are far more than the mirror issues of good versus evil. The entire creation history of Middle Earth can virtually be read as Tolkiens taking the myths and legends that he found so compelling and weaving them in a narrative which explains how the Biblical creation story became the basis for those mythologies. The Valar, it is stated in the Silmarillion, have been 'called gods' by men, but are really the equivalent of angels [or Ainur in Tolkiens works]. Tolkien deliberatley gives them forms similar to the many gods of Celtic and Scandanavian myths, while also borrowing from those legends for inspiration for such things as Numenor, the Evil Eye, the Dunedain, etc. In effect he is creating a world were these 'pagan' myths have a quasi-Biblical foundation.

I can only speculate on why this would be the case; why such a great imagination would not simply create a world totally removed form his own religious upbringing; but perhaps the answer is that Tolkien was seeking a way to justify - no stop, that's not the right word - to appreciate these 'pagan' legends at the same time as upholding his own own beliefs in the way the world was, is, and should be.

As a closing for this arguement, may I quote from and early part of Genesis, where it speaks of some of the angels actually taking human brides and siring many great heroes of early days. The implications of this passage seem in some ways similar to what Tolkien did in taking the rich pre-Christian culture of the Celts, Anglo-Saxons, and others and putting it forward in a distinctly Judaeo-Chiristian light.