Roa_Aoife wrote:
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We cannot pick and choose which parts are true and which aren’t- that’s manipulation.
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But what was being discussed was not "which parts are true" (if any).
And I think a great number of Jews would disagree about having to take both Testaments or nothing . . .
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6 One day the angels [a] came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan [b] also came with them.
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I could be very pedantic and say that even if one grants that "angels" does not include "Satan", that does not mean that Satan is not a minion of God. If you look at his role in the Old Testament as a whole, it is really quite different from that in the New Testament. I think this is the point Bethberry was making (though I invite her to correct me if I'm wrong).
In any case, it seems to me that what's relevant to a discussion of Tolkien's works is Tolkien's belief concerning Satan's fall. And he quite clearly stated, as Davem quoted:
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I suppose a difference between this and what may be perhaps called Christian mythology is this. In the latter, the Fall of Man is subsequent to and a consequence (though not a necessary consequence) of the ‘Fall of the Angels’; a rebellion of created free will at a higher level than Man, but it is not clearly held (and in many versions not held at all) that this affected the ‘World’ in its nature: evil was brought in from outside, by Satan. In this [i.e. Tolkien’s own] Myth the rebellion of created free-will precedes creation of the world (Eä); and Eä has in it, subcreatively introduced, evil, rebellions, discordant elements of its own nature already when the Let it Be was spoken. The Fall, or corruption, therefore, of all things in it and all inhabitants of it, was a possibility if not inevitable. (Letters 286-87)
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