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There are some serious obstacles in accepting the version of the Sun and Moon as given in Myths Transformed. The opening salvo is: "At that point (in reconsideration of the early cosmogonic parts) I was inclined to adhere to the Flat Earth and the astronomically absurd business of the making of the Sun and Moon."
As Tolkien himself recounts, a minor loss would that of dramatic impact (no first incarnates walking in a starlit world, no unfolding of the elven banners at the first rising of the moon). More serious that this is the fact that the cosmological myth of the Silmarillion comes out as a "creative error". Moreover, in Christopher's words"
"As he stated it, this may seem to be an argument of the most doubtful nature, raising indeed the question, why is the myth of the Two Trees [as being created from the sun, not the other way around] (which so far as record goes he never showed any intention to abandon) more acceptable than that of the creation of the Sun and the Moon from the last fruit and flower of the Trees as they died? Or indeed, if this is true, how can it be acceptable that the Evening Star is the Silmaril cut by Beren from Morgoth's crown?"
The problem that seems to be at hand is that Tolkien considered the Sil. to be too "primitive" in nature; primitive, but not _absurd_. The here discarded myth cannot be excised as a "gratuitous element", since it is closely related to the two trees giving light to Valinor, while ME was in darkness - and it is in darkness that the elves had to wake, under the light of the stars (not of the sun).
Moreover, Tolkien concludes that Men should awake during the Great March - now this doesn't leave _that_ much weight to the stature of the elves as firstborn, does it?
Before the making of Utumno (and the waking of the elves) Melkor ravishes Arien - and it is thus burned and "his brightness darkened" - how then could he appear in fair form to the Men he would later corrupt? [Another problematic idea presented in M.T. is that Fionwe was son of Manwe, which is pretty much against my understaing of his Legendarium.]
To conclude with Christopher's words concerning this particular theory of Sun and Moon: "It seems to me that he was devising – from within it – a fearful weapon against his own creation".
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