Tolkien’s Scrapped Version of the Garden of Eden and the Original Sin
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- čas přidán 28. 06. 2024
- In this video we explore Tolkien's lesser known story about Middle Earth's Garden of Eden and Humanity's Fall, as well as the role of the Bible within the Lord of the Rings and the world of Middle Earth!
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Spooked by the Mini Vandals
Chapters:
0:00 Intro
0:44 Biblical Stories in the Lord of the Rings
2:33 Tolkien's Concerns on Allegory
5:01 Middle Earth's Garden of Eden
8:17 The Solution - Zábava
I hope you enjoyed this new type of video for my channel. Any feedback at all is very very appreciated!!!
This is the most underrated writing in Tolkien’s mythology. I absolutely believe Tale of Adanel is one of the best and most insightful modern stories I ever read - it is on par with ancient myths cultures told to make sense of the world around them and human nature.
And you summarised it perfectly!
This is just another example of why I adore Tolkien’s work so much. It functions brilliantly as an amazing story completely on its own while simultaneously revealing so many Biblical truths and elements of Tolkien’s faith. Really fantastic video and explanation!
Elf: "I have heard you speak of a few times, my friend, but never what it was. Why?"
Man: "It is of great shame to us, friend, and it is between us and two I'll not name. We find it better not to speak of it."
Elf: "Is there not some way to mend your shame that you may speak of it?"
Man: "Nay, friend. I fear the only one who may speak it without shame is the one who is free of it."
Elf: "Then may his coming be swift, ahead of the Eagles."
Man: "May it be."
I have been working on my own setting along the same lines as Tolkien (Heavy Christian themes while trying to broadly remain a distinct secondary world) & have dreaded touching the Garden of Eden story. It's so important if you want to make the themes line up, yet it's very difficult to do. Especially with how people are now. Any fruit is an unjust temptation, because these people cannot comprehend the notion that choice is a fundamental part of creation.
Have you read His Dark Materials? That's how you tackle the Garden of Eden, and I'm indebted to Pullmann for my own fantasy story.
Det hade varit fördelaktigt för din berättelse om du hade avindoktrinerat dig själv från denna främmande tro.
@@Siegfried5846there are many issues with Christianity, but associating them with "foreignness" reeks of white supremacy or antisemitism.
one of the things i like about lotr is that it doesnt try to be a christian allegory like cw lewis narnia, its only when you dig into it that you start seeing the christian inspiration.
Bro...I never knew Narnia was a Gospel until recently
@@celestialhylos7028 it's a gospel ???
@@Nokyyyyynot “a”. “The” Gospel is the right word for it
Ju mindre kristendom i boken desto bättre. Detta är inte bara sant för sagan om ringen, utan för all berättarkonst. Kristna berättelser kan inte läsas utan skyddshandskar och visir.
To be fair, Narnia isn’t technically an allegory. An allegory is something like Pilgrims Progress where the characters literally represent different ideas. Narnia doesn’t have this. Take Aslan for example. He is not supposed to be an allegorical representation of Christ, but is LITERALLY supposed to be Jesus. Lewis himself said Narnia wasn’t supposed to be an allegory but rather a thought experiment of if there was a fantasy world like Narnia how would God appear there.
im an atheist/agnostic so naturally I don't believe in our own versions of this story, but i think it's really interesting how he chose to represent the fall of man here. rather than focusing on humanity's desire for forbidden knowledge causing them to disobey god, he instead emphasises our greed for material wealth and how it led us to abandon god entirely. i think it's (probably subconsciously) a reflection on his beliefs about the modern world, particularly to do with industrialisation and globalisation
Jonathan Edwards believed that if the doctrine of original sin hadn't been taught explicitly by the Bible, we could still infer it implicitly from observation.
I love to think of Tolkien's writings to be taking place before the Biblical flood which erased just about everything from that era so much that is only recently that we have begun to uncover ruins from what would be that time period. Not only that we know now that a Hobbit like hominid did in fact exist in the island of Flores in Indonesia and yes they have the characteristically large oversized feet.
Everything new about Tolkien I learn about is just as fascinating as the last 😊
A concise explanation clearly giving the context in terms of Tolkien's faith - well done! 👍
I think this somehow clashes with the concept of the Gift of Ilúvatar as mentioned in LOTR.
I think what probably happened is that Men hadn’t had the chance to die before, as this fall happened within the very first years of their existence.
So it’s not that they were immortal before their fall, but their lives were likely longer, similar to the Numenoreans, and after their spiritual decline, their health also declined to the levels we know today. It really comes down to the wording of the original text!!
@@InkandFantasy And not only similar to the Numenoreans, but the early characters of Genesis as well, who lived to be hundreds of years old.
I just realises one of the biggest reasons this might clash with the Silmarillion and not been published: it makes the origin of civilisation evil via Melkor/Morgoth, whereas in The Silmarillion the elves and dwarves and humans just naturally start making things and constructing buildings and such.
This version leaves elvish and dwarven civilisation unaccounted for, and implies Eru Illuvitar didn't want civilised humans at all which doesn't mesh with anything else in the books. (Likewise how did the Hobbits and such settle down? As published its just the Eru given nature of certain beings, but this version implies its all evil)
Thanks for sharing this lesser known bit of writing, its fascinating stuff! 👍
Thank you for watching!!
I'll admit that Eru Illuvitsr always seemed like the aloof Old Testament god: making evil (in this case Melkor who is permitted to alter the song of creation and whom Eru refuses to act against at all until the end of time, but then blames and punishes the elves and humans when Melkor actually bothers to talk to them and they listen)
I thoroughly enjoy your videos, regardless of the topic you choose. You must have studied theology at some point. Also, it’s good to put a voice to a face, so to speak! I had never heard about this narrative that was left out of the Silmarillion, thanks For posting!
Thank you so much!! It really means a lot for me
Looking at the thumbnail I thought he was doing something similar to paradise lost.
You got an HD source for that map of Beleriand @ around 8:00?
the fall of numenor could be inspired by sodom and gamorah
plus Atlantis, plus the lost westernesse of Britain
🎉
While his take on the fall of men is beautiful I can understand from a Christian perspective why he ultimately decided to toss it. He knew that some fickle minded individuals could easily try to use his version to create a new false religion. So he decided that if people want to learn about humanity's fall that the Bible was to be their guide. So in short read Genesis and place his writings between the fall after Cain and Abel and before Enoch and Noah.
A few points of disagreement: 1) Tolkien did believe in the Genesis creation account. However, he thought that a vast and unspecified amount of time could have passed between the fall of man and the flood. 2) Arda is way older than the age of the Earth according to the Bible. It's way younger than the age of the Earth according to atheists. 3) Tolkien was Catholic, so it's possible that he did not believe the Biblical flood really covered the whole Earth. During the medieval period the RC Church used to teach that Paradise/Eden was not covered by the flood. The flood, or some version of it, is probably what changes the 4th age to the 5th, and all the events of LOTR would have occurred before Noah, even if Elendil is somewhat inspired by Noah.
Near Eastern languages and myths weren't his bailiwick ;-)
You have adorable good boy. 👍
Thank you!!
Det glädjer mig att detta vidriga budskap aldrig kom med i boken, för det hade förstört sagan om ringen.
The underlying nature of Tolkien’s creation was not to function as some offshoot of Christianity but to supplant it as the dominant ”belief system.”
... What? Tolkien wasn't trying to create a new belief system or replace Christianity, he himself was a devout Catholic! He was trying to create a myth for Britain, that is, something clearly understood not to be true but which still imprints on the land something of a cultural identity.
@@Zilla1954 That ”cultural identity” is in competition with the foundational belief system of Christianity. People have such a blind spot regarding how religion operates…
@@JesseBrown-qf6zp Only if people take it as true, and you're the only one taking it that seriously. Stories like these have had their function in Christian society since its inception, such as King Arthur, yet you don't see any "cult of Arthur" popping up. That's because it is understood that Arthur was, at its heart (in spite of certain Druidic elements) a Christian story with Christian themes. The same goes with Tolkien, and though his story is not overtly allegorical, the Christian theme runs to its heart and can even help people relate to the stories and themes in Christianity because they have seen similar themes expressed through characters they have come to know by heart through dialogue, monologue, and interior thought.
Tolkien and Lewis' storytelling is almost like one of Jesus' parables in a way. Jesus was expressing Biblical truths in roundabout ways, such as the parable of the sower. Is Jesus actually a farmer? No, he was a carpenter, but the story still helps to relate His role in God's plan and our response to Him. Was there actually a Sauron who created an all-corrupting One Ring? No, but it still helps express Satan and how he tempts others with the lure of power. Was there actually a King Aragorn of Gondor and Arnor with "the hands of a healer?" No, but it helps relate Jesus' role as King of Kings and healer of the sick. No, Tolkien's stories don't "compete" with Christianity, they cooperate with it.
@@Zilla1954 It is quite serious given that Tolkien literally devised his own supreme deity in the form of Eru. In a scenario where a belief system has generated enough momentum to inflict punishment for transgressing its dogmas, one gets burned at the stake for less. ”False idols” and such.
@@JesseBrown-qf6zp But one difference, the false idols were made to actually be worshiped. Find ONE person actually worshiping Eru (and not just in the sense that Eru is a reflection of the Christian God) and I'll give you a gold sticker.
'Every story is about the Fall'? Well, at least His Dark Materials is the true story about the Fall, and Tolkien got it all wrong.
Neither story is true bro, it's all fantasy (the Genesis too)
Must have encountered the fundamental problem in that god lied about the tree while the serpent told the truth.
Bara ett av Bibelns omvända uppfattningar om rätt och fel.
God lied about the punishment of eating of the fruit? So you expect to live forever then? Also, the serpent told the truth? So how, exactly, are we any more like God than before? Sure, we can now discern good from evil like God can (but in a broken and flawed way), but we choose the evil over the good, making us less like God.
@@Zilla1954 God the rat bastard, lying to his creatures.
Notice how the Tale of Adanel sanitizes the whole thing by erasing any themes of gender and sexuality.
Because Tolkien was not a patriarchal misogynist from three thousands years past Middle East
@@SMiki55 I wrote a take on the same story from a feminist perspective. You don't need to agree with the patriarchal mysoginist to have themes of gender and sexuality in your story.
@@francescocarlini7613 but why tie the original sin with gender or sexuality at all? Instead of acknowledging it as the fault of the humankind as a whole, it only makes people debate whether the man or the woman should be blamed more.
@@SMiki55 Except sin is a GOOD thing and god is evil; THAT changes everything.
@@francescocarlini7613 whatever works in your story I guess.
This video showcases the ridiculousness of trying to find catholicism everywhere in Tolkien works, ex the recounting of generic themes that can be found in any big body of works and deluge myths are one of the most common motive in mythology. Morgoth demanding worship and obedience under threats make him more similiar to Jahwe than to Satan or Serpant from abrahamic mythology. The story has a very gnostic undertones, Morgoth may as well be Demiurge and the real true God is outside of the world hidden as a spark in very few people hearts.
Gnostic undertones that came from catholicism until it was banned. Tolkien was a very religious man, no need to hide this.
Obildade typer ser inte att "Sagan om ringen" är inspirerad av den nordiska sagoskatten, inte den främmande Bibeln.
Morgoth's rule brings suffering, and he delights in the physical and spiritual destruction of his people (such as when, under his influence, humans began to commit human sacrifice), far from the rule of God, who brings healing and salvation as seen in the Gospels. Besides, God doesn't really threaten as much as he warns of the natural dangers of excommunicating oneself from goodness itself (God). If you reject goodness, you can't really expect good things. If you actually studied Tolkien you would see that his Catholicism was the driving force in both the way he lived and the way he wrote, so please stop accusing him of Gnosticism of all things.
If Tolkien was a Gnostic he would not introduce himself proudly as a Catholic.
omg i love the new direction!!! your dog is the most adorable thing ive ever seen
Haha thank you so much for the support and for the membership!!!