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Originally Posted by Lalwendė
In the Bible, Satan sends evil into the world by tempting Adam and Eve who had previously been Good and lived in Paradise. He is the cause of The Fall - or you could argue that Adam and Eve are. Either way, the world was inherently Good and then Satan brought Evil into it with The Fall. In Tolkien's cosmology however, our 'Satan' is there causing trouble before any people inhabit Arda. There is no period of Good. Melkor adds his own theme to the Music and thus the world is created complete with inherent evil. It suffuses everything, even the land itself, and the Elves! Letter 286 goes into this. So right away, Melkor is a different kettle of fish.
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I'd posted in a very similar
thread that Middle Earth could not be a pre-Christian or more specifically a pre-Abrahamic world. Posts on this thread have made me think more about the parallels and so I've come up with a new answer. Possibly, Arda could be Earth preNoachian Flood. Previously I stated that Earth did not go 'downhill' or become ungood until Adam and Eve sinned. Up to that point, creation was good.
But what about Lucifer?
In the first book of John (Christian Bible) Satan is said to be sinning from the beginning, and so we can see him to be like Melkor in that both were rebelling against Eru's/YHWH's will before the creation of humankind. So that fits. We could posit that somewhere in the east, before the tribes of men came to the western part of Middle Earth (Beleriand?), that there existed Adam et al. Also, I think that the Sil states that Morgoth went amongst men when the children of the sun first appeared, and maybe to one he appeared as a snake (dragon perhaps?).
The remainder of the Bible, even the New Testament, could then be considered to have taken place not in Middle Earth but elsewhere, and the revelation of Christ had not yet reach the northwestern shores by LotR. For that, though, we would have to assume that Noah's flood was either local or a retelling of the fall of Numenor.
Please note that I mean not to offend or defend, but just saw that, with a little thought, one could align the Sil and the Christian Bible. Also note that one may have to interpret some of the Bible differently, and some demoninations may interpret otherwise.