Silmarillion - Valaquenta

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Aiwendil

I was reminded of the two creation stories in Genesis as well when I was thinking about the Valaquenta's repetition of the Ainulindale. Tolkien would surely have been familiar with the coexistence of the two stories in Genesis. There's an interesting difference, though - what's remarkable about the two stories in Genesis is that they are different. They actually seem to contradict one another. But everything that is said in Valaquenta seems to be quite in line with what is said in the Ainulindale. Of course, slightly different and contradictory versions of the creation story do exist within Tolkien's writing, but only if you compare works written at different times. It seems that Tolkien was rather intent on achieving a thorough consistency in his Legendarium, even among texts ascribed to different authors.

Actually, I have a question about Genesis that I've long wondered. I recall that scholars generally agree that Genesis as found in the Torah is actually an amalgamation of several different texts, and that this is why there are two creation stories. My question is how Christian theologians view this. Does the Catholic church agree that the text is an amalgam of different texts? How do they reconcile the two creation stories?

Whoops, forgot about this thread for a bit. It is interesting how different those two versions in Genesis are and how Tolkien's are so similar. That similarity would for me suggest he was determined not to appear to create a parody, as I believed he wrote once about why he had no Fall in his mythology. (I believe it was the Fall, although my memory could be faulty here.) Come to think of it, are there "Falls" in other mythologies?

I'm no theologian or biblical scholar, all's I follow are the theories as they affect narrative theory.

Formendacil could well be right about no official stand, although certainly there are hundreds of years of needling over the issue, from all sides. There's a discussion of Biblical inspiration here at the Catholic Ecyclopedia , although I don't think that an online encyclopedia has the full patent on church infallibility. It's not so much about who wrote what as about the concept of divine inspiration.

There seems to be a sense that Inspiration (and what that involves) does not violate the free will of the person who receives the inspiration, so that the writers remain the people they are with their individual characteristics as writers. There is much talk back and forth about specific literal inspiration and more general inspiration. I certainly wouldn't think that Tolkien would have ascribed to the idea that word for word the Bible was dictated from on high--far too simple an idea for a man who was so aware of human creativity. The Bible, of course, is not the sole source of God's word for Catholics, so I assume that Tolkien also would not have regarded it that. But then I'm not a mind reader of authors. Only of texts.