The Lord of the Bible?

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Mansun

It is always good to have someone who challenges the ideas of others to balance the argument. But there also comes a point where one asks if a particular thread is for them?

It's actually essential to have the critic in the corner who is separate from the main thrust of discussion if there's to be any hope of finding more than merely subjective guesses. All Books threads apart from mirth and RPG type ones will have a little critical pixie or two to pop up throughout and argue the opposite. That's part of the fun.

[davem]

Ok. You look at a particularly impressive cloud formation & 'see' a castle. That's fine. However, if you then go on to claim there is something specifically 'castle-like' about that cloud, that it is necessary to know about castles in order to understand/appreciate that cloud, that that cloud can tell you anything about castles, or that only someone with a knowledge of castles can understand what that cloud really is, I will argue with you, because I think we would no longer be dealing with a matter of personal opinion but a wrong opinion (& frankly a silly opinion). To claim that only someone who believes that cloud castles are a real possibility has any valid opinion on clouds is not logical & to think that believing in cloud castles means you will have a deeper experience of that cloud than someone who doesn't believe in them is a bit smug (as well as wrong).

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

I'm going to break in here, and hopefully prevent a riot.

Personally I found the biblical parallels quoted in the first post to be unconvincing, and for the reasons given in Hookbill's response. That does not mean that there are no biblical parallels in LotR, just that those particular examples could have been thought out more carefully. My reading of the book has never suggested a character or plot element that has obviously been lifted directly from the Bible, but Tolkien knew more about the Bible and theology than any of us, and without a similar knowledge both of the Bible and of Roman Catholic theology, modern and medieval, all of our theories are likely to run astray.

I find it unlikely that Tolkien would re-use stories from the Bible, and he certainly wasn't trying to write an allegory. He was frequently troubled by thoughts that his legends veered away from Catholic orthodoxy, and to make any obvious connections would seem to increase that danger. That is not to say that there are not Christian teachings embedded in LotR, such as the importance of mercy, the existence of an individual choice between right and wrong and the centrality of love and self-sacrifice, but these are not biblical characters or events, rather ideas which are expressed in Christian writings. Similarly, if one were to say that a character was a representation of Christ, it would not be enough simply to point to wisdom or self-sacrifice: those characteristics can be found everywhere in world literature. Certainly it's not enough to say that a character preaches (Elrond does not, to my mind, preach at all), or that he narrates stories from history: that character would need to share important characteristics, such as accepting punishment for the crimes of others, rising from the dead or being the son of a deity; preferably all three.

If there is a character who clearly fits a Christian model it is Morgoth. He is the most powerful and beautiful of the Valar, yet his pride in those gifts leads him to reject the authority of his creator . Thenceforth he is renamed to show his new role as the enemy of good, which is embodied in the Creator, Eru. In its essentials this is the story of Satan, who is also renamed from Lucifer ('Light-bearing One') to Satan ('Adversary'). However, this parallel is so obvious that most of us take it for granted; and its source is not the Bible, but a mass of apocryphal literature that was particularly popular in the Middle Ages. The Anglo-Saxon poem Genesis B, translated from contemporary Old Saxon, records this story in verse; and if Tolkien was not intimately familiar with it then I should be very surprised.

Setting aside davem's objections, we should all be aware when looking at Tolkien's sources and his use of them, that he knew and understood many things more completely than do we. His upbringing, education and experiences were far removed from the present-day norm, and he grew up in a society that is now virtually unrecognisable. Nobody seems to look at Thucydides, for example, for Tolkienian parallels, and yet Tolkien once won a school prize for his knowledge of the Greek historian, whom he read in Classical Greek and who was on the syllabus at King Edward's. Tolkien's influences can be sought in the Latin and Greek authors so beloved of nineteenth-century educators, in the Germanic legends with which he was professionally concerned, in the literature of his time, in his religion and in his own experiences and imagination: to pick out these threads requires a frightening amount of study, not only of Tolkien but also of all these areas. My education is not up to the task, and it's difficult nowadays to find anyone who does have the necessary grasp even of the essentials (who has read the Aenead in Latin? Tolkien had, before the age of eighteen.

My point is that when discussing something as central to Tolkien's life as Roman Catholicism, particularly when trying to spot it in his works, we ought first to find out as much about Roman Catholicism and Tolkien's works as possible. If we want to find Biblical parallels, we should at least know the entire Bible, since Tolkien certainly did. The same caveat applies to mythological and literary parallels: know the sources, know the literature, know Tolkien and think carefully. Tolkien was a subtle and learned man: he cannot be dissected with a hammer.

[davem]

Or we could just read & enjoy the story as a story, stop trying to second guess, impose meanings, foist our own belief systems on the work & generally try & make it serve our own purposes…

[Hookbill the Goomba]

Originally Posted by davem

Or we could just read & enjoy the story as a story, stop trying to second guess, impose meanings, foist our own belief systems on the work & generally try & make it serve our own purposes…

I'm inclined to agree here with Mr Dave. Reading Tolkien's forward alone tells us that looking for deeper meanings or messages wasn't the intension in creating the Lord of the Rings or the Silmarillion, but merely to create a history for his languages and an entertaining story.

It is folly, I think, to assume that Tolkien had any ulterior motive. Perhaps there are hints towards Christ. Perhaps there are some similarities. Who can say? I think that trying to look too deeply down this road can lead to us walking in circles for a long while.

I will not deny that there are some Characters that have some kind of Christ like attributions. Just as Christians are supposed to show forth Christ like behaviour (the term Christian being, of course, an insult to the early church meaning 'Christ like' to describe the behaviour of the early church) this was probably a little more common in Tolkien's day than today and would not have been regarded as anything unusual.

You could look at it a different and more ambiguous way... The Bible says that "God is Good" so, when in a book there is a character who does something good do you say they are an allegory for God? Personally, I wouldn't.
But... hay ho... I don't know...

[davem]

Originally Posted by Squatter

davem: as for Tolkien's comments on the Paternoster being reflected in the scene at the Sammath Naur, Frodo has forgiven the trespasses of another (Gollum), hence he does not suffer the full penalty for his own failure: Frodo is shown mercy just as he in turn showed mercy to Gollum, which seems a fair interpretation of those lines. Admittedly I doubt that was at the forefront of Tolkien's mind as he wrote the scene.

Well I'm quite familiar with Christianity & those particular lines never sprung to my mind when I was reading it. I can see they may have been in Tolkiens – either at the time of writing or later when he came to analyse them. However from a reading of LotR alone there is no sense that Eru has intervened to 'save' (ie forgive) Frodo, nor to 'damn' Gollum. The whole episode can be read as a working out of wyrd or just a simple fluke. Even when one knows about Eru there is no reason to bring in the Lord's Prayer as an explanation ( a reduction of a supremely powerful episode to a platitude imo), as there is little evidence in the text that Eru is exactly the same deity with the same values & patterns of behaviour as Jehovah. Seeing Eru as Jehovah is another imposition of Christianity on the story. Tolkien may not have distinguished between them (he probably did not) but from the text itself I don't see enough evidence to support the identification.

[Boromir88]

It's actually essential to have the critic in the corner who is separate from the main thrust of discussion if there's to be any hope of finding more than merely subjective guesses. All Books threads apart from mirth and RPG type ones will have a little critical pixie or two to pop up throughout and argue the opposite. That's part of the fun.~Lalwende

Well what would be more fun is everyone just agreeing with me.

I think we all must distinguish between Tolkien the omniscient narrator, Tolkien the recorder, and Tolkien the observer. All of which we can get a good dose of (especially in Letters). Of course lmp, I would bet that Tolkien knows his works better than anyone else would. When he is making these allegories to the 'Lord's Prayer,' or there is one instant when he thinks the Numenoreans are most like the Egyptians, it's important to realize that often times he's taking a step back from the story and reflecting upon his own experiences when reading. So, it's only natural that a man such as Tolkien I think would make a connection the the Lord's Prayer as he did.

I didn't see that, and I probably would have never noticed that connection until someone told me:

Tolkien may not have distinguished between them (he probably did not) but from the text itself I don't see enough evidence to support the identification.~davem

And that's the key, when Tolkien goes back he himself, because of the person he is and what influenced him, may be able to find allegories of the Lord's Prayer. But, someone like me when reading the scene in Mount Doom, I thought nothing of it. I think it's important that Tolkien all the way up there in his late ages stressed the importance of the reader:

Of course the L.R. does not belong to me. It has been brought forth and must now go its appointed way in the world, though naturally I take a deep interest in its fortunes , as a person would of a child.~Letter # 328

So, lmp, this is no knock to Tolkien, but what he thought of, what he found for his own 'allegories' really doesn't effect what I find and what I experience when reading his books.

[littlemanpoet]

One reader's platitude may be another's way of life. That it is a mere platitude for one does in no wise lessen its centrality for the other.

[Macalaure]

I was just writing about the same that Boro just did, so I'm making this short.

It is understood that Tolkien disliked allegory and looks for applicability.
In this light, Tolkien's interpretation of his scene at Sammath Naur is the way he applies the scene to himself. This does not mean that his interpretation is the only valid one. If it was, it would get us dangerously close to allegory.

The parallel between the scene and the Lord's prayer has never occurred to me before, but now that it is mentioned and explained, I see it. Very nice, though I still don't like the idea of divine intervention causing Gollum's death.

However, this is just Tolkien's application, not an imposed and uncontestable explanation, and noboby is forced to follow it. Edit: To say this view reduces the scene is a little hard, in my mind.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Hookbill the Goomba

I'm inclined to agree here with Mr Dave. Reading Tolkien's forward alone tells us that looking for deeper meanings or messages wasn't the intension in creating the Lord of the Rings or the Silmarillion, but merely to create a history for his languages and an entertaining story.

It is folly, I think, to assume that Tolkien had any ulterior motive. Perhaps there are hints towards Christ. Perhaps there are some similarities. Who can say? I think that trying to look too deeply down this road can lead to us walking in circles for a long while.

Listen to what Hookbill says, he's speaking sense!

Tolkien told us that LotR was not an allegory. Therefore we can find all the metaphors we like in x y or z character or situation, but he didn't intend it that way. So if we do find these metaphors or symbols or whatever, we're not necessarily getting closer to understanding the text as intended, only our own response to it. It's intellectual navel gazing - loadsa fun but then someone might well come along and ask us what the hell we're looking at.

Temper this with the knowledge that Tolkien was indeed a Christian, in fact a devout Catholic, a very particular type of Christian. So of course put together with the other 1,001 influences on his mind, his faith would influence his work. I've just been talking about Catholicism/Gothic elsewhere.

I think the key point is that LotR has a Christian spirit; note that this 'spirit' is not an exclusively Christian one - how could it be for people of so many faiths (and none) to all join in enjoying this book? So it can't be co-opted by one group of society - sorry if anyone was planning on doing that - not that you were.

The book's a good one for Christians as of course some of the themes support a lot of Christian tenets (but do they all??? Now there's a discussion), but it also supports non-Christian ones too. And that is a very good thing as far as I'm concerned, and only further demonstrates Tolkien's sense of humanity