Some parts of Bible not true: Catholic Church

by **Homeless Halo** » Sat Oct 08, 2005 4:05 am

I'm saying its based on Celtic and Gaelic mythology and filled in with Norse and Greek Mythology. All of which share common roots (slong with Babylonian, Hebrew, etc) in Sumer. Since it was oral, in the Brit Isles, usually singing, it hadn't strayed as far from its post-sumer, semi-semitic roots, as had say even Babylonian by the same time. So, yes, in a roundabout way. It shares common influences with Babylonian myths, and parts of it could well be based on Babylonian myth. It seems sort of Hodge podge, but it has all the Archtypical stories, in one form or another. And it traces bloodlines. Which may or may not be important, depending on how you look at all this. I don't know if I BELIEVE any of this: But I do know that other people, many of them very influential, do. This means I should know as much as I can about it, in order to make the proper decisions from where I stand. Y'know, just in case.

by **banned** » Sat Oct 08, 2005 6:50 pm

...was created by him because he was frustrated that the British didn't actually HAVE a developed mythology system of their own on a par with the Norse sagas that he studied like the Elder Edda. There were no "ancient Briton gods." What I find interesting about Tolkien is that he was by all reports a devout Catholic, yet he created a mythological system that has no connection whatsoever with the Judeo-Christian cosmology. Iluvatar is not Jehovah, Morgoth is not Lucifer. Of course there's the similarity that runs through many myth systems--former good guy falls, good and bad struggle for the souls of men (and elves), good forced to punish errant men (the flood, the 'world change' at the end of the First Age, the destruction of Numenor). But Tolkien's mythos has no Messiah/savior/redeemer who is a Christ parallel, despite all the chatter when the movie came out seeking to make Frodo a Christ figure. Frodo failed. If Christianity had begun like that, Jesus would have at the last minute wimped out on going through with being crucified and Judas would have been crucified in his stead in order to redeem humankind. Interesting scenario and one some people believe in, by the way.

by **Homeless Halo** » Sat Oct 08, 2005 10:30 pm

What you say is true, but I didn't assert what it seems you think I mean. Frodo isn't the Christ figure. By the scale I'm speaking of, Frodo was a good 11,000+ years ago. The direct parallels between JRR and actual myth are in our older myths, long before Judaism or Christianity. The myths of the British Isles, were all imported myths. The natives by the time of Rome, had originally seperated from the other children of Abram, or so the Greeks said. Surviving only in bits and pieces and in heavily modified form (the Romans Grecianized/Romanized the Celt/Gaelic myth systems farther from their Semitic base which were then Christianized and made into stories about saints, very garbled), there is indeed British mythology. All of it is imported either a long time ago, or a very long time ago. From Sumer, and from Rome, and from the Vatican. The protestants erased large portions of it entirely, by the time it was their turn. Tolkien used the norse archtypes to filler his myths, pieced together from pre British folklore and old semitic discourse. Of course, there is always room for Artistic liscense. Remember, I only said that there is one form of each of the stories, arranged in a satisfactory order. IT is one viable theory for the history of the world, because it incorporates the belief systems of the earliest civilizations. Even the Star Cult exists in the Simarillion. Maybe the same star cult that initiated Christ. But not literally.

by **banned** » Sun Oct 09, 2005 12:44 am

...I have not read the Silmarillion. I have read LOTR and some of the critical literature about it, which is where I learned the background of the Silmarillion. I thought it was interesting as background to LOTR, but not gripping enough to read the book itself. I guess I'm like Merry and Pippin, can't live very long on the heights <img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/wink.gif ALT=";)"> .

by **Jill Burdigala** » Sun Oct 09, 2005 2:20 am

Banned, I've read both and think I actually prefer The Silmarillion to The Lord of the Rings in some ways. Certainly LOTR is a more polished, engaging, and "filled out" work, but The Silmarillion has a stark, distant quality that makes it feel like genuine myth, or like some of the rough early European epics like the Song of Roland, The Nibelungenlied, Beowulf, and the like. Also the Silmarillion is a tragedy, whereas LOTR is more of a comedy (in the old sense of moving from darkness to light) and tragedy appeals to me more. And it has some truly brilliant passages that I feel surpass anything in LOTR, not from the enchantment of the writing, which the Silmarillion doesn't really have. but from their raw power: the tragedies of Feanor and Turin, the downfall of Numenor, and especially the tale of Beren and Luthien which IMO is the most beautiful and moving story Tolkien wrote. So, yeah, it's not everyone's cup of tea, but it definitely contains its treasures for those who sometimes enjoy travelling in a bleaker, darker land.

by **banned** » Sun Oct 09, 2005 5:08 am

...another try. I first read LOTR circa 1965, and eagerly awaited the Sil, but when it came out I just couldn't get into it. I think it's not so much that it's dark, as precisely that all its characters are "out of myth." For me to really get into a book, there has to be a character I identify strongly with emotionally. This doesn't need to be someone anything like I am in real life, but there has to be something about their situation that I can relate to. Now, I can relate to characters as diverse as Lord Jim and Lady Brett Ashley, but when I've read excerpts from the Sil, the characters seem too idealized. Now, I've never abandoned my shipmates or slept with a bullfighter, but I can imagine how it would feel. Maybe I just didn't read the parts of the Sil that would have hooked me in. What's interesting is, I could identify in some way with quite a variety of characters in LOTR, even unsympathetic ones like Denethor (I didn't 'get' him when I was younger, because I had never felt what he feels--despair, which Tolkien's Catholicism considers a sin and Kierkegaard called "The Sickness Unto Death." And regrettably Peter Jackson didn't 'get' him either in the film and turned him into a cardboard villain--which is too bad, because I think John Noble had the chops to do Denny as the Professor wrote him.)

by **Jill Burdigala** » Sun Oct 09, 2005 11:25 am

Banned, I have to agree with you about characterization in The Silmarillion. I don't want to say the characters are two-dimensional but they do have that sparseness of development that is typical of the old epics. I think that's precisely the effect the author was going for but you're right, it does make it harder to get into the story and forge a truly sympathetic attachment to what goes on in it. There's not as much diversity or development of the landscapes either, which are so rich in LOTR and so effective in bringing Middle-Earth to life. You know, when I saw the movies in the theater I came out convinced that Peter Jackson had done about as good and faithful a job (content cuts notwithstanding) that it would be possible for anyone to do, but after having watched them a bazillion times on DVD I find that my biggest response now is getting irked at some of the shortcomings. I don't like the way some characters and incidents were twisted around to conform to a formulaic hollywood mold, such as the very worst and unforgiveable example where Frodo believes Gollum's lie (or is at least swayed by it) and sends Sam away, only so the plucky gardener can later appear like the cavalry when all seems lost. I agree that Denethor is one of the characters who came off worst. The one that bothers me most, though, is Faramir, who in PJs version has been stripped of nearly all the nobility that distinguished him in the book. Perhaps PJ would have had time to put in a little of the Old Forest, the Barrow Downs, the Scouring of the Shire or whatever if he hadn't invented things like that ridiculous episode with the Warg riders where Aragorn falls into the river and we're supposed to think he's dead. Anyway, the movies are still pretty good, it's just that the nitpicky stuff stands out more to me now. Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=jillburdigala>Jill Burdigala</A> at: 10/9/05 9:26 am

by **banned** » Sun Oct 09, 2005 11:25 pm

Jill, I agree with you completely about the changes growing more noticeable over time. My frustration is, if he got SOME of it right, he could have gotten ALL of it right! However, I think in all fairness to Jackson, we have to remember several things. One, it's little short of amazing that the director of "Meet the Feebles" and "Brain Dead" pulled off ANYTHING that longtime Tolkienistas wouldn't walk out on screaming and demanding their money back <img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/happy.gif ALT=":D"> . Second, it's also amazing that New Line popped for three films, one per book, but it created a problem for Jackson that not many directors face...holding audience interest for 3 films released a year apart, based on a source that many people already had read and which those who hadn't could pick up before his 2nd and 3rd films came out and get "spoilered." Lucas with "Star Wars" wasn't working from a text that everyone already knew--he was making it up as he went along. I know a lot of people who went to the last 3 "Star Wars" movies simply to find out what happened, they didn't expect to really like them and they didn't. As for Harry Potter, the books on which the films are based are more self contained. LOTR wasn't 3 books, but 1 book in 3 volumes. When Jackson made all 3 films at once, for all he knew, the first one might be a turkey and the second two would go straight to video. He and New Line did an amazing thing keeping the audience building from film to film, and sweeping the Oscars with ROTK. Lots of new readers were brought to the books by the films who might otherwise never have read them. Still, when you see what a fabulous job Jackson did with, say, the death of Boromir, or Gollum, it's frustrating to see how he blew Faramir (and the Faramir/Eowyn love story) and how much the film really needed the Scouring. I seriously hated Saruman falling on the spiked wheel. I'm deeply embarassed to say that I didn't hate Denny's fiery cannonball off the prow of Minas Tirith, though I know I should have. I also liked the Legolas stunts, the skateboarding down the steps and bringing down the Oliphaunt...In my own defense, perhaps the 13 year old I was when I first read the book came out <img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/happy.gif ALT=":D"> . That may also be who filled my house with action figures... Speaking of Jackson, I just got the October "Wired" magazine with the cover article on "King Kong" and the photos inside of Jackson will blow your socks off. I could have sat on him now and not recognized him, 70 pounds lighter, minus the roto-tilled hair and fingerprint-covered wire rims. Good on ya to Fran for getting him to peel off that weight before he keeled over untimely.

by **Jill Burdigala** » Wed Oct 12, 2005 1:52 am

Banned, I guess we've completely hijacked this thread with our Tolkien back-and-forth, but since it seems to have died anyway I'm not sure there's any harm in it. You make a number of perceptive and intelligent points about the films, and I have to say I don't disagree with you. In fact I can confirm their accuracy, because my husband never read the books and had no interest in doing so, yet he was completely sucked in by the films. There has to be something right about Denethor's "fiery cannonball off the prow", as you so expressively put it, because it seemed somehow fitting to me too. Although, okay, one thing on which I do have to disagree with you is Legolas' skateboarding (although my husband thought that was hilarious, so it must be a guy thing). Mentioning Legolas reminds me of one other pique, namely that I thought Gimli was treated unfairly as an object of comic relief. For some reason, as I reader I always sympathized more with the Dwarves than the Elves, even though the Dwarves don't come off very well in either The Hobbit or The Silmarillion (although there is one moving scene when the Fathers of the Dwarves cower under the lifted hammer of their creator Aule, when, weeping, he prepares to destroy them because he believes Eru desires it), and apart from Gimli don't get much mention at all in LOTR. But, again, I can see why the idea of Gimli as comic relief worked in the films, although PJ could probably have found a way around it if he really wanted to. But on the whole, yes, I think you're right, that overall he really did manage to do a remarkable job and deserves credit for it, despite the grounds for nitpicking that purists may find. Several of his scenes were so perfect that they brought tears to my eyes, which admittedly is not all that hard for a filmmaker to do but at any rate he did manage to do it. I can't conceive of a more perfect film version of the Shire, for instance. Well, it's good that he's slimmed down. I guess some of us have to stay behind to hold the fort <img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/eyes.gif ALT=":rolleyes">

Some parts of Bible not true: Catholic Church

not exactly

Actually I read that Tolkien's mythos...

Indeed.

I have to confess...

Re: I have to confess...

Thanks Jill, maybe I should give it...

Re: Thanks Jill, maybe I should give it...

Jackson vs. Tolkien

Re: Jackson vs. Tolkien

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