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Originally Posted by Bęthberry
But as to two creation stories, actually Genesis itself has two, or at least two accounts of primeval time, and I have always rather thought of the Ainulindale and the Valaquenta similarly. So that makes four.  |
Heck, throw in John 1:1 and you have yet another version of the creation story, one that I think particularly pertinent and resonant with Tolkien: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God".
But I digress.
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It's interesting to me that he found, or sensed, that the best way to talk about the truths that he held so dear was to not talk about them, if you take my meaning. To portray the underlying truth without the trapping, or in a different trapping.
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Misty Undy: I think this is what I was trying to get at myself when I wrote above about Tolkien's having given his story the 'odour' of the sacred, but you do it much better. Reading
LotR always reminds me of a particular fish pond in Istanbul -- bear with me. The fish pond dates back to Persian Empire when it was said that the fish were sacred to the water deity of Asia Minor. Then Greece conquered the city, renamed it Byzantium, and the pond was full of fish sacred to Poseiden. The Greece fell to Rome, the city was once again renamed Constantinople and the fish were sacred to Neptune. Then Rome became Christian and the fish were the descendants of those caught by the apostles and which Christ had used for his miracle of the loaves and the fishes. Then the Ottomans conquered the city, renamed it Istanbul, and the fish suddenly lived in a pond that had been created by a miracle of Allah... The point being that even though different beliefs and creeds have come and gone, that particular place (which is quite beautiful) has throughout the millenia maintained a sense of sacredness. The people who have claimed it may have disagreed as to which god or God it was who had sanctified the place, but they all agreed that it was a holy place.
Middle-Earth seems to me to be very much that kind of a place.