garner_se

burrahobbit,
I'm now interested in this positively conclusive idea that Eru is the same as the Christian God. I noted before that Tolkien thought it was a neat idea to fuse legend with religion, but I'm not sure that he ever actually drew that comparison to his own writings.

Of course, I have not read all the literature on the subject, and if he is quoted somewhere, then I am humbly interested to read it and its context.

I know that there are lots of neat little nuggets in his popular stories that seem to suggest this duality, but at the same time there is a very LOUD lack of Judeo-Christian ideas, institutions, and the like. In fact, to me this world has the qualities of exactly what these religions teach against, such as a plurality of gods and that others can create:

• Yavanna made trees and beasts
• Aule made the Dwarves (though Eru had to give them life)
• Manwe made his hawks (this changed to Eagles by the Sil.)

This is a really fun topic for me, so let me know if you want to keep going. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

I could not agree with you more. Eru (Creator, Person, Music, etc.) is timeless.