Who or What is Tom Bombadil?

[Glaurung]

Tom has always been a mystery to me, and I suppose Tolkien meant him to be one. I've also been wondering who really is the oldest of all beings of Middle-Earth. Celeborn refers to Treebeard as the eldest, and Tom says he was around before trees even existed ( sorry I don't have the book in English so I can't quote the sentence...). So? If Tom was there before trees existed, I think Treebeard couldn't have lived by then. But did Celeborn make a mistake or had he just forgotten about Bombadil, or did he know about Tom at all?

[Raynor]

Treebeard is only called the eldest among Ents:

Originally Posted by The road to Isengard, TTT

For Treebeard is Fangorn, and the eldest and chief of the Ents, and when you speak with him you will hear the speech of the oldest of all living things

In letter #153, Tom is called "the Eldest in Time"; also, in a draft letter which appeared in The Lord of the Rings Companion, by Hammond and Scull, it is stated that:

Eldest was the courtesy title of Treebeard as the oldest surviving Ent. The Ents claimed to be the oldest speaking people after the Elves until taught the art of speech by the Elves...They were therefore placed after the dwarves in the Old List... since Dwarves had the power of speech from their awaking

Even in Treabeard's song, in the Treabeard chapter, TTT, he doesn't claim he is the eldest being:

Learn now the lore of Living Creatures!
First name the four, the free peoples:
Eldest of all, the elf-children;
Dwarf the delver, dark are his houses;
Ent the earthborn, old as mountains;
Man the mortal, master of horses

[Elu Ancalime]

If Tom was there before trees existed, I think Treebeard couldn't have lived by then. But did Celeborn make a mistake or had he just forgotten about Bombadil, or did he know about Tom at all?

Even though Treebeard was not eldest of all the races, i think while Tolkien might meant (or leastways showed) that while Ingwe might have been the first elf (whether he was or no dosnt really matter in this case; there was a first elf, and Ingwe is the most likely), he and Tom would be able to share the title of 'Eldest' and 'First' without problem.
The reason why i think that is because: There was obviously a 'first' elf. So that title automatically goes to them. Then Tom calls himself Eldest, and says he was before all elves. So Tom gets a share too. Now to be before elves, he would have to be an Ainu (which i dont beleive) but using Ainu in this context meaning created of the thought of Illuvatar or out of the Music. Pointbeing, he was before Melko returned and before the Marring.
So there really is nothing to take away Tom's claim to the title, unless he is lying, which even putting his character aside, we can prove that is false. Gandalf is an Ainu, so he would know whether Tom was before elves or acorn or anything he said because he was around before Arda, and would have said that was false if Tom was really lying.
So, going back to my origanal theory and post, its ok to have two 'Eldest,' because one is Eldest(of all the speakers minus Ainu) and Tom was still Eldest(metephorically)
Also, if treebeard was the Eldest (technically, wouldnt he be? the Ents were before the Elves wernt they, but they couldnt speak yet?), Celeborn would have recognized my theory, because as one of the Wise, he would have known well of Bombadil, so he would have known he was not incorrect in calling Treebeard Eldest.
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Chrysler Nassau History

[Raynor]

the Ents were before the Elves wernt they

I wouldn't say so:

Originally Posted by Of Aule and Yavanna, Silmarillion

When the Children awake, then the thought of Yavanna will awake also, and it will summon spirits from afar, and they will go among the kelvar and the olvar, and some will dwell therein, and be held in reverence, and their just anger shall be feared

The ents don't come sooner than the elves, but pretty much at about the same time (if not later).

[Elu Ancalime]

and they will go among the kelvar and the olvar

For some reason I always had the implication in my mind that the Ents went to Middle Earth the all the animals and plants soon after the Aule-Eru incident, when Yavanna said the forest would need protection from enviromental degradation from the dwarves, and they just kinda hung out until they elves came along.
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OG KUSH PICTURES

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

In the early drafts of LotR, Tom calls himself 'Aborigine', not 'Eldest'. As Christopher Tolkien observes in his footnotes, the likely times for Tom to come into being are before the flight of Melkor and Ungoliant or, more likely, during the time in which Melkor was banished in the Void. Since Tom remembers the dark beneath the stars when it was fearless, Varda's star-kindling must have taken place before his memory begins, and therefore he was not alive when the Dark Lord originally entered Arda, first of all the Valar. That basically blows all of the 'Tom is an aspect of Eru', 'Tom is the spirit of Middle-earth' and 'Tom is a forgotten Maia' theories I've seen out of the water and leaves us with a character who is an anomaly. He's not exactly an Elf, certainly not a Dwarf, and while he could be a Man (the most likely explanation in my opinion), his great longevity is difficult to explain. In his letters, Tolkien points out that Middle-earth is an imperfectly conceived universe, and all but tells his correspondant that Bombadil can't be made to fit at all.

Personally Bombadil strikes me as Adamic, which might explain his long life. We might, I suppose, take him to be an image of unfallen Man, blessed with length of years and a disdain for worldly concerns, but even that would take some explaining, since he was in the lands about the Shire before the Elves first passed through. Tolkien was probably right: philosophizing does not improve him. My instinct is to accept the character as a mystery and mark up all inconsistencies with the main mythology to the vagueries of the branching acquisitive theme. After all, Tom was conceived long before he was made a part of Middle-earth, and it's perhaps inevitable that some of the joins should still show.

[Aiwendil]

Squatter wrote:

Since Tom remembers the dark beneath the stars when it was fearless, Varda's star-kindling must have taken place before his memory begins, and therefore he was not alive when the Dark Lord originally entered Arda, first of all the Valar.

Why? It seems to me that his memory could have begun before the star-kindling even if he remembers that later age. I remember yesterday even though my memory begins before yesterday. Another point to be noted is that there were stars, dimmer and more feeble, before Varda's great star-kindling.