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I suppose the interesting thing about the Flood from a Tolkienian perspective is not the Biblical connection (which was most probably inspired by the Gilgamesh story), but Tolkien's own 'Atlantis' complex, which was also 'inherited' by one of his sons - Michael?
This is fascinating to me - the concept of an inherited 'dream'/fantasy. Tolkien uses the idea in his time-travel stories. It doesn't seem to have any personal reference - though I suppose a Jungian could put forward a theory along the lines of him being overwhelmed by the contents of the Collective, or Mythic, Unconscious.
Its a powerful image, but not a Biblical one (Alatar has pointed out the significant differences). This makes me wonder about the Biblical inspiration behind Tolkien's Legendarium generally. Tolkien could have had a Great Flood in his work which matched the Biblical account, but he didn't - instead he went for the 'Pagan' version - 'Atlantis' destroyed by an angry Deity.
Its another example of Tolkien being able to tie his Legendarium more closely into Biblical 'history' but choosing not to. Only Numenor is annihilated, not the whole of Middle-earth. Its as if he is deliberately avoiding Biblical parallels. If his theory that Myths are 'distored' versions of Biblical Truth why would he do this?
Of course, the easy answer would be that he was creating a Myth himself & because all Myths are 'distortions' he felt his own Myth should be as 'distorted' as all the others. Yet we know that his approach was to try & discover 'what really happened'. So the problem arises - if he was attempting to tell the 'real' Truth of the ancient past, is writing about a devastating flood which changed the whole world, why doesn't his account echo the Biblical account more precisely?
Unless we are to understand that there were really two (or possibly more) floods - but then how come the Bible only mentions one - & of a totally different sort ? What we seem to have is an account of a flood which rather 'confirms' the 'truth' of the various Pagan versions of the Myth - Plato's in particular.
Odd....
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