The Lord of the Bible?

[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.