Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6125905" data-attributes="member: 4937">Just a small quibble, the making of middle-earth is very religious and it is very much informed by a Judeo-Christian perspective and a Catholic one specificly.  But it is quite consciously not at all Biblical.   No Biblical names are used anywhere in middle earth.   There is an unfiinished conception of linking the stories of Middle Earth to the Arthurian legends, but no intention or conception of linking them to any Biblical Story (no one in the Middle Earth legendarium is the ancestor of Abraham or Noah or any other Biblical figure, and despite introducing humanity as a created race, there is no mention of Adam).  Middle-Earth has some parallels to the Biblical accounts (single monotheistic creator, for example), but it is not an exact parallel nor is it intended to be allegory.  If you attempt to draw parallels, you'll find that things don't line up.   This was intentional.  For example, the elvish reverence for Elbereth is partially inspired by Catholic Marian reverence, but Elbereth isn't Mary in any form or role.  There are parallels between the Ainur and the concept of angels, but the Ainur are never called 'angels'.   There are very strong and conscious parallels between the Biblical metaphor of the Light, and how Tolkien uses light metaphorically in the story, so that a reading of The Gospel of John strongly improves and informs the understanding of Tolkien, but there are ways that Middle Earth is radically different in its account of the history of 'enlightenment' in the world.Tolkien doesn't try to do a direct parallel to any Biblical account, and indeed castigated his friend Lewis for treading too lightly in what he considered those deep waters.</blockquote>

Verification