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‘The Silmarillion’ Is a Dense Yet Highly Engaging Origin Story for J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-Earth
As Game of Thrones draws to a close, and a new Amazon Lord of the Rings TV series awaits, J.R.R. Tolkien is sure to return as the king of fantasy (if he ever even left). Despite being dead now for nearly 46 years, Tolkien created, in Middle-Earth and the stories that take place there, a rich, vivid mythology that has ensured his immortality.
Many people first came to appreciate Tolkien’s work because of Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings film trilogy in the early 2000s. I was one of them. Only eight years old when The Fellowship of the Ring came out, I was not allowed to see either it or its sequel in theaters (though I did catch them later on DVD). But when my parents said they would let me see The Return of the King in theaters, I decided to read all of the books in the trilogy before the movie came out so that I would appreciate it properly. Even at age 10, I recall getting lost–in the best possible way–in the epic and fully realized world of heroism and mysticism that Tolkien had created. Seeing the last movie in theaters remains one of my best-ever theatrical experiences, and it confirmed my status as a Tolkien fan.
Looking for more ways to deepen my fanhood at the time, I came upon The Silmarillion, which I have now had the chance to discuss on an episode of the Legendarium Podcast. Described to me as the ‘Old Testament’ of The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion gave the backstory to which the more famous trilogy is the culmination: the creation of the world, the early struggles between its gods, the plight of the elves, the coming of men and dwarves (and their own trials), etc. Delighted that there was more material to read, I dove right in…only to crash on a rocky shoal of confusing names, excessive detail, and quasi-poetic prose that seemed straight out of some ancient tome. I got only a few dozen pages in before giving up on The Silmarillion.
Only recently, as the excessive cultural cachet of Game of Thrones has turned me into a rabid anti-Game of Thrones reactionary, did I make myself go back and finish The Silmarillion as part of my first full rereading of all of Tolkien’s most popular work, also including The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Rereading The Silmarillion, I could understand why, as a 10-year-old, I found it so daunting. The names were still myriad, and often confusing; the stories abounded, intersecting in ways sometimes unclear to me; and the prose had the same ancient tome quality that I recalled from my youth.
Yet these were far more minor complaints this time around. While 15 years ago, they kept me from getting lost in the work as I did in Lord of the Rings, now they could barely restrain my enjoyment of it. For The Silmarillion is a true epic, the product of a single mind (two if you want to count his son Christopher, who compiled and edited what his father never completely finished). Usually, epic traditions are the products of entire cultures and many authors, assembled over centuries or more. But in preparing a backstory for The Lord of the Rings (which–importantly–was never the focus of Tolkien’s writing, but rather the bulky bottom of the iceberg that allowed him to tell the tiny top of his most famous story), Tolkien just decided to create such a mythology of his own accord within a discrete period–a stunning achievement. Sure, others have followed his lead since. Yet many of them have gotten too lost in their creations, too high on playing god, to produce a work that also contained transcendent themes (or ended!).
For though The Silmarillion is an epic, of gigantic scope and scale, it is also strongly driven by individual actors and choices. Pride, arrogance, fate, hubris, irony, mortality–those all-too-human forces–play out among a cast of often larger-than-life characters nonetheless subject to them.
Indeed, it is hard for me to explain how, exactly, but The Silmarillion seems not merely like the mythic creation of its author, but rather like a window into an entire other tradition, heretofore unknown. Something about the way it was written strongly suggests that what we have is actually a translation from another language, now long forgotten, and that what we are reading pales in comparison to the actual story, now long disappeared. This is not to say The Silmarillion is a bad work; rather, that in depicting its own rich mythology, it successfully conveys a sense that what actually happened was somehow even grander than what we are reading. It is, at times, hard to believe all of this came from the imagination of one man. Tolkien himself felt similarly. He wrote that, in creating his legends, he “…always I had the sense of recording what was already ‘there,’ somewhere: not of ‘inventing.’”
The most compelling reason for the more casual Lord of the Rings fan to read The Silmarillion, however, is that it puts everything in Tolkien’s more famous work in context. It deepens one’s understanding of what happens there, and answer some questions about where some things came from. It also instills an appreciation for how, in Tolkien’s understanding, everything in The Lord of the Rings is merely a less impressive imitation or centuries-old echo of the ancient struggles depicted in The Silmarillion, a sort of “there were giants, in those days” aesthetic that often goes underappreciated in Tolkien’s immortal work.
At any rate, if you want to hear more from me (and others more qualified) about Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion, check out my appearance on the Legendarium Podcast.
Published in Literature
I wouldn’t know. Logically speaking, this is an appeal to authority. That’s not necessarily a fallacy–well I know it! But, infallible authorities aside, these arguments are inductive, and subject to being overcome by better arguments not based on authority–arguments which are in the open here and probably ought to be engaged.
But if it’s a contest of who’s studied the most theology, shall we lay our cards on the table? This is me. My B. A. is Biblical Studies and Philosophy. My dissertation on Augustine could have been written for a theology Ph. D. if one word had been changed about 20 times. My biblical Greek is probably better today than it was in 2004 when I won an award for my good grades there. According to Matthew Levering, “all theologians must read” me.
On the other hand, I’ve never been to seminary, know no biblical Hebrew, never did theology comps exams in grad school, and have not read millions of the books a theologian probably should read. I don’t really understand N. T. Wright’s view of justification. And so on.
Master of Theology (4 yr / 120 hr) from Dallas Theological Seminary (Biblical Greek, Biblical Hebrew, Systematic and Historical Theology, Biblical Exegesis, New Testament Background…).
I never fully comprehended NT Wright’s justification either – I’m not saying it’s wrong, but it’s very different from Augustine, Calvin, and Luther.
My grandmother is a devout Buddhist, so she made sure to raise us (her children and myself) as Buddhists. My grandfather just accepted this, even though he was raised Catholic (he was definitely not a devout Catholic, I really doubt he put much faith in religions). But I was very young then and I didn’t think too much of it. It was mostly following grandma around to wats and listening to chanting monks. Ever since I became old enough to make a decision on faith, I’ve always considered myself an atheist. Personally, I don’t really consider Theravada Buddhism a theist religion. I’ve always viewed it more as a philosophy.
Hey, that’s great!
I went to DBU!
The mountain mystical spirits are not at all Christian.
All the insistence that it is Christian ignores the obvious that the world created is almost entirely secular. No one prays. No one has a relationship with god. No one goes to confession. There are no priests forgiving sins. Wanting it to be Christian doesn’t make it Christian.
Why should there be? World-building is an act of craftsmanship, like writing music, or a poem, or painting.
Christian poets are permitted a rich inner mythology full of “pagan” or even heretical stuff if it makes an interesting point in their poems. Why not Christian fantasy writers? Can’t fantasy be fantasy, after all?
Thanks for the info.
If I may ask, are your roots in Thai Buddhism?
I only know it as literally a tourist, but I thought it looked very Hinduistic. Not that surprising, since classical Buddhism itself emerged in a Hindu context. I was also fascinated by the belief that local spirits like strawberry Fanta.
I do think Buddhism works as a philosophy and not just as a religion. Sometimes one, sometimes the other, sometimes both.
Sure, but it’s not very Christian unless it has something Christian in it.
I’m not sure what you mean by Thai Buddhism, but I’m Cambodian. Also, the vast majority of Southeast Asia are Theravada Buddhists, if that’s the branch that you meant. And yes, Cambodian culture is very influenced by Hinduism. I don’t want to derail this post so I recommend you check out a bunch of my previous posts (such as this and this.). The majority of my posts are about Cambodian culture, Hinduism and Buddhism (not trying to toot my own horn or anything).
Fantasy elements.
No one is saying these are Christian people. We’re saying these are people in a story conveying a Christian worldview. They don’t even have confession or priests in Narnia or in Abraham’s household. In Tolkien people do have a relationship with G-d, just not one structured in contemporary church terms.
Indeed.
How many more Christian things do you need me to list?
Ah, yes! I can now almost remember. I think I read about it in the group writing on reincarnation. That time I did Plato and you did East Asian Buddhism, if my returning vague memories are right.
I may get to the links later. No time just now and I’m on a phone.
You’ve not listed a single uniquely Christian element.
So monotheism, creation ex nihilo, and a rebel angel don’t count? Pity / compassion as a primary virtue doesn’t count? Piety / obedience to sacred duty doesn’t count? Recognizing an active providence helping us along the way doesn’t count? Resurrection doesn’t count? If we added the goodness of physical creation and a prophecy of the Incarnation (documented in Wood’s very good book), would that not count either?
Or are you objecting because each of these things is shared by at least one other worldview?
That is bad reasoning.
Say I list my beliefs that G-d exists, that G-d created the world ex nihilo, that Jesus is the Messiah, that there is only one G-d, that G-d the Father is G-d, that G-d the Son is G-d, that G-d the Holy Spirit is G-d, that Sola Scriptura is true, and that it’s best to not baptize infants.
Each of these beliefs is shared by at least one of the following: Jehovah’s Witnesses, LDS, Muslims, Jews, Catholics, Presbyterians.
Those beliefs make me a Baptist, but not by your reasoning.
No, of course they don’t count. Those are not “christian” in any unique way. The fundamental part of christianity that cannot be discarded is the rejection of other beliefs in favor of the worship of god and Jesus. If your work recognizes any other deity then it is anti-christian, or at least non-christian.
Calling LOTR “christian” is like saying a car is the same thing as an ice cube. Sure, they both have mass, and have solid parts and even some liquid parts in certain temperatures, but an ice cube is not a car.
That doesn’t make much sense to me. So far as I can tell, you could be Baptist or Catholic (there is nothing dogmatic in Catholic faith that requires infants to be baptized, it’s mostly a convention). I don’t know specifics of Presbyterian faith. But regardless, christianity excludes the worship of gods other than the trinity and it requires prayer, worship, and recognition. There is no such recognition in LOTR, and plenty of mentions of mystical spirits that do not owe their existence to the Judaic Christian god.
Presbyterians baptize infants.
Technically, that list of beliefs only narrow me down to being either Baptist or part of one of a few other closely related denominations.
I think the guy worshiped as Zeus exists. I believe he’s a real guy (and a jerk). I’m not kidding.
So did Augustine. So, probably, did Paul (1 Cor. 10:20). This is a real (and important) theory in biblical theology: The angelic beings were worshiped as deities and can even be called “gods” in a loose sense, and are called gods in the Old Testament.
Is Brian Godawa not a Christian because he thinks this? Am I not? Are Augustine and Paul not Christians?
Not at all. The Silmarillion is crystal-clear. They are all created by G-d. They are angels.
And what is your logic here exactly? You are apparently saying two things. First, that recognizing other deities means something isn’t Christian. (Addressed ab0ve.)
Second, that something can’t be Christian unless it explicitly denies these other deities and professes G-d and Jesus. As emphasized here:
But if making all this explicit is a requirement for a Christian worldview, then Christianity would not be able to accept, presumably, anyone from Adam through Noah, Abraham, and Moses to David, Isaiah, and maybe even John the Baptist as part of the same religion.
Few if any of those guys recognized or even understood any doctrine of the Trinity.
Do you realize what that would mean for Christian theology? That would make it self-contradictory.
Elves, Gandalf, et al do recognize one G-d, however. And they know not to worship false gods. The phrase “children of Iluvatar” is one such recognition.
That’s not saying that infants MUST be baptized. Only that they are better off if they are.
Good grief. Christianity takes from Judaism the absolute rejection of henotheism. Were there christians who accepted henotheism? Most likely, but that is not part of being a Christian and nor has it ever been. Many are the imperfect believers.
I think you’re alone there, even among the ancients.
They weren’t Christians, none of them. They were Jews.
I’ve never said that Christianity was logical or not self-contradictory. Christianity isn’t true, of course, so naturally there will be inconsistencies. Your examples of the listed individuals won’t demonstrate that, though, because they lived before christ and certainly before the concept of the trinity was invented.
Then plainly this is not the case:
I’ll grant that it’s a plausible enough first-glance reading of the English that that it’s recommended rather than required. With sin and salvation at stake, I think that’s not at all likely. I wish I could find an online Latin text; the original phrasing of “are to be baptized” might shed light on it.
You are missing the point entirely. The very meaning of Christian theology–whether it’s right or wrong being entirely beside the point–is that it is the continuation and completion of the religion of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and Isaiah, to name only a few. So a Christian worldview must recognize those guys as part of the same religion.
I’ll happily be alone with Augustine and Paul if I must.
But I’m not alone–not even on Ricochet. If you seek knowledge in this area you should check out @aarong3eason‘s interview of Godawa on his podcast.
Yes.
No.
This isn’t henotheism. This is recognizing that angelic beings have been worshiped with the worship due to the one true G-d, creator of heaven and earth–and creator of angelic beings.
Just as Eru, the One–named Iluvatar by the Elves–created the Valar.