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Originally Posted by davem
Sounds fine but I notice no-one's actually come up with any direct correspondences that work. All the suggestions so far (Elrond or Gandalf or Frodo is a 'Christ figure' all seem to have been rejected. Morgoth's story is a 'bit like' the story of Satan, etc).
The general feeling seems to be that some people are vaguely reminded of Biblical figures/stories.
Where are the specifics?
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He admitted to Galadriel being linked, to a certain degree, to Mary:
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Originally Posted by Letter #320
I was particularly interested in your remarks about Galadriel. .... I think it is true that I owe much of this character to Christian and Catholic teaching and imagination about Mary, but actually Galadriel was a penitent: in her youth a leader in the rebellion against the Valar (the angelic guardians).
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Earendil is linked more than etymologicaly to the concept of divine messenger:
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Originally Posted by Notion Club Papers, HoME IX
Its earliest recorded A-S form is earendil (oer-), later earendel, eorendel. Mostly in glosses on jubar = leoma; also on aurora. But also in Blickling Homilies, se niwa eorendel applied to St John the Baptist; and most notably Crist, eala! earendel engla beorhtast ofer middangeard monnum sended. Often supposed to refer to Christ (or Mary), but comparison with Blickling Homilies suggests that it refers to the Baptist. The lines refer to a herald, and divine messenger, clearly not the sodfaesta sunnan leoma = Christ.
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He calls Elendil "a Noachian figure" - and I think that the comparison is rather accurate, seeing that he saved the remnants of an entire culture from deluge. As far as the story of Melkor being "a bit" like that of his Bible counterpart, he did call his rebellion as satanic, and commented on Melkor being "the inevitable Rebel and self-worshipper of mythologies that begin with a transcendent unique Creator", or more directly,"the Diabolos of these tales".
All in all, I don't think he disliked the presence (and the detection) of christian elements in his works; he stated that "I am a Christian (
which can be deduced from my stories)" and he called LotR a "fundamentally religious and Catholic work".