Quote:
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Originally Posted by Raynor
However, the Silmarillion, the letters and the Athrabeth all show that Men were designed from the beginning to die
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Oh dear, it appears I haven't made myself clear, and for that I do apologise, as I certainly didn't intend my remarks to mean that Men were originally given elven longevity. What I had hoped my context, and especially the sentence following one you quote, would have shown is the idea that this designation for Men represents a change in Eru's ideas about how to create or form lifeforms. My use of revision relates to the entire concept of creating life. Was his thought of Men simultaneous with his thought about Elves or did he think to create Men later in time. (Oh there's that bothersome issue about the nature of time with Eru.) Given the metaphor of music, which occurs chronologically (beginning and end not heard simultaneously for the audience at least, although perhaps for the creator), did Eru see that his shaping of Elves had an inherent negative element, so that his next creation (so to speak), Men, corrected this error. As in, "Oh bother. This longevity thing isn't working so well with the elves. Let me try a different model."
Or I suppose it could have gone like this: "Ho hum. I'm immortal. What do I do with myself? Do I really know what this means? Would others? I wonder, what would happen if there were others who didn't understand immortality like I do? Why don't I sing into existence various life forms and see what they make of time and immortality. Hmmm. This little piggy will have thousands of years and this little piggy will have few."
EDIT: Opps, didn't see Lal's post and now RL puts an end to my participation here. Perhaps afterRL I can return.