Biblical Parallels in The Silmarillion

BIBLICAL PARALLELS IN THE SILMARILLION

Alfred D. Byrd

Copyright © 2016 Alfred D. Byrd

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Table of Contents

THE SONG OF THE HOLY ONES

THE GODS OF MIDDLE-EARTH

THE SPRINGTIME OF ARDA

THE COMING OF THE ELVES

THE FALL OF THE NOLDOR

THE COMING OF MEN

THE TALE OF BEREN AND LÚTHIEN

THE TRAGEDY OF TÚRIN TURAMBAR

THE NECKLACE OF THE DWARVES

THE TALE OF GONDOLIN’S FALL

EÄRENDIL’S VOYAGE

THE RISE AND FALL OF NÚMENOR

SECRETS OF THE RINGS

THE SONG OF THE HOLY ONES

(SPOILER ALERT! This chapter summarizes the chapter Ainulindalë from The Silmarillion.)

The Story

Eru Ilúvatar, the One, the All-Father, lived at first alone in the Timeless Halls amid the Void. Out of his thought, he bore the Ainur, the Holy Ones, whom he kindled with the Flame Imperishable. Teaching them to sing, he gave them a theme on which all of them were to sing together.

One of the Ainur, Melkor, to whom Ilúvatar had given the greatest gifts of power and knowledge, went often into the Void in quest of the Flame Imperishable. This, he wanted to use to make things of his own. He did not find it there; it lives only with Ilúvatar. Melkor, however, grew different from the other Ainur as he wandered in the Void.

When the Ainur sang together, Melkor did not sing Ilúvatar’s theme, but put his own themes into the great music. Discord arose. Most of the Ainur stayed with Ilúvatar’s theme, but some of them grew downcast at the discord and lost track of the music; others even followed Melkor’s lead. Twice, Ilúvatar put new themes into the music. Twice, Melkor kept the discord going until Ilúvatar ended the music with a mighty crash.

Ilúvatar, showing the Ainur a vision of what they had been singing, told them that Melkor’s discord but added to the music’s final beauty. In the vision, they saw amid the Void the beautiful world of Arda. Into this there came, as Ilúvatar’s second theme, a company of Ainur to fight Melkor’s discord. Into Arda came, as Ilúvatar’s third theme, the Children of Ilúvatar, Elves and Men. The Children of Ilúvatar got caught up in a terrible conflict that came from Melkor’s themes. Of this conflict, the Ainur did not see the end. This, only Ilúvatar knows.

Ilúvatar showed the Ainur then that he meant to make the vision real. Saying, Let it be, he brought into being the universe of That Which Is. The Ainur saw, amid numberless stars, Arda’s disk, formless and empty. The Ainur had to finish Arda by playing in reality the roles in its creation that they had played in song.

Melkor went to Arda along with his followers to chase his own dream of being Arda’s king. Many of the Ainur who had been faithful to Ilúvatar went to Arda, too, from love of what that world would become. There, they became the Valar, the Powers who finish and guard Ilúvatar’s vision. Out of love for the Children of Ilúvatar, the Valar took forms like those of Elves and Men, though, to the Valar, these forms are like suits of clothes that they can put on and take off.

Melkor, too, took a human form, dark and terrible. As the time for the coming of Ilúvatar’s children neared, Melkor and the Valar fought great wars for control of Arda. When the Elves met Melkor, he would become to them Morgoth, the Dark Enemy, of whom all other evil powers were but servants.

The Parallels

The story of creation as known to Tolkien’s Elves shares much with the Biblical account of it. God, like Ilúvatar, was at first alone in creation’s work. It is written, Before Me there was no god formed, and Yes, before the day was, I am He (Isaiah 43:10-13; see also Job 38:4-7).

The Ainur in the Elvish tale are like the Biblical account’s angels, whom God made as fiery spirits. It is written, Who maketh His angels spirits, His ministers a flaming fire (Psalm 104:1-5). Sages have debated whether God created the angels before the rest of creation, or as part of it on the fourth day, when stars were made (Genesis 1:14-19). Calling stars angels comes from the verses in Job, which equates stars with sons of God and speaks of their singing at the creation of all things.

Tolkien’s equivalents of angels are created before anything else is. When Tolkien speaks of the Valar as finishing Ilúvatar’s creation, he parallels an ancient interpretation of Genesis 1 that makes God’s We and Us include angels as His partners in creation. The concept of angels as partners goes along with Rabbinical Jewish and Mediaeval Catholic lore that speaks of hierarchies of angels, each with an assigned field of duty. (In the next chapter, I shall tell you more of hierarchies of angels and of the Valar’s duties.) Many Christian scholars, however, take the We and Us of Genesis 1 to mean the Trinity, not God and angels.

Melkor, or Morgoth as he will come to be called, is like Lucifer, the fallen angel now known as Satan, the Adversary (Isaiah 14:12-15). The concept of Satan’s having been the highest of angels with the greatest of gifts comes from an ancient interpretation of Ezekiel 28:11-19. Although, in this passage of Scripture, the prophet speaks to the King of Tyre, many see Ezekiel as speaking through the king of a supernatural being that had been in the mountain of God and the Garden of Eden. The word cherub elsewhere means a kind of angel (Ezekiel 10:1-22) that was carved onto the lid, or mercy seat, of the Ark of the Covenant (Exodus 25:17-22).

In Tolkien’s tale, Melkor is not actually cast out of heaven, but grows estranged from Ilúvatar through fighting the Valar for Arda’s mastery. The concept of an angelic war appears in Scripture in Revelation 12:7-9, which tells of the archangel Michael’s casting the great dragon and his angels to the earth. Michael, as we shall see in the next chapter, may be like the king of the Valar, Manwë.

The dragon is identified with Satan in verse 9 and is said to have drawn a third of the stars of heaven to the earth in Revelation 12:4. Many see the war of Michael and the dragon as yet to come, but an ancient tradition teaches that it took place before, and in view of, humanity’s creation. The English poet John Milton, whose work Tolkien certainly knew, followed this tradition in Paradise Lost. In the Elvish tale, however, the war of Manwë and Morgoth occurs on Arda, not in the Timeless Halls.

Throughout Scripture, angels appear to humans in human form, and Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light (II Corinthians 11:14). Tolkien’s Valar wear the human form just as a suit of clothes. Tolkien does, however, parallel an ancient tradition of angels’ (Sons of God) marrying and having children with the earth’s peoples (Genesis 6:1-4). As you will see in later chapters, such important characters from The Lord of the Rings as the Elvish Elrond and Arwen and the Mannish Aragorn are all descendants of an Ainu named Melian.

Last, the great crash that ends the Ainur’s music is like the Battle of Armageddon that ends the struggle between Christ and Satan for the earth’s rule (Revelation 16:16; 19:11-20:3). In his writings on Middle-Earth, Tolkien hints at such a struggle at Arda’s end. From his words, we can gather that a fallen hero named Túrin Turambar, of whose tragic life I shall tell you later, will return from death