As I mentioned in my first post in this thread, it might become difficult to argue your teacher,
Black Captain, if you're not well read in
Tolkien and myths. This goes even more so if you want to take it up with such evidently well read and narrowly focused people like this David Alten (who is, btw., very much arguing along the lines of Joseph Pearce, IMO).
Anyway, here are some thoughts regarding your quotes from the article:
Tolkien tell us that:
"
The Lord of The Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work, unconsciously at first, but consciously in the revision". Elsewhere he states "I am a Christian (which can be deduced from my stories), and in fact a Roman Catholic" (ibid.).
Now the first sentence is from a letter to Father Robert Murray, a Jesuit and friend of the
Tolkien family (it is even said that Tolkien played a certain role in Murray becoming a Jesuit). But it is interesting to note that in the passage from this article the first sentence is taken out of context - as is done by most of those who want to hijack LotR as an entirely Catholic or Christian allegory.
The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. That is why I have not put in, or have cut out, practically all references to anything like 'religion', to cults or practices, in the imaginary world. For the religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism. However that is very clumsily put, and sounds more self-important than I feel. For as a matter of fact, I have consciously planned very little; and should chiefly be grateful for having been brought up (since I was eight) in a Faith that has nourished me and taught me all the little that I know; and that I owe to my mother, who clung to her conversion and died young, largely through the hardships of poverty resulting from it.
From: Letters #142 (my italics)
Now, if we take Tolkien's statements above seriously and he has
"...not put in, or have cut out, practically all references to anything like 'religion'..." why would anyone still be able to find such references abound? If Tolkien so disliked allegories would he purposely draw such parallels and then deny that?
Galadriel bestows upon the Fellowship seven mystical gifts, which are surely analogous to the seven sacraments, and as such are real signs of grace, and not mere symbols (and hence this is a specifically Catholic feature of the book).
The number seven occurs quite frequently in LotR (seven stars, seven stones, seven rings, seven
kings, etc., etc.) as well as in many myths. Seven was the number of the known celestial bodies in the early civilizations of the near east and has ever since become the number of days in a week, giving the days their names. And consequently - since these celestial bodies were considered deities - we often encounter seven deities or seven pairs of deities (the
Valar make no exception to that) in myths.
Also what are the parallels between the seven gifts and the seven sacraments? Is there anything that holds water? I doubt it.
Gandalf or
Aragorn (and even possibly
Frodo) may be seen as Christ-like: with Aragorn the king entering his kingdom, the return of whom everyone is expecting; the apparent "resurrection" of Gandalf when he dies on the
Bridge of Khazad-Dum after the fight with the
Balrog; or
Boromir’s surrender of his life for his friends in order to save his companions (made all the more remarkable because of his earlier attempt to seize
the ring by force and by his subsequent repentance); or Frodo’s willingness both to serve and to carry his burden.
Here the author seems to mix up a hero with a 'Christ like'-figure. Quests where the hero has to carry a heavy burden even to the point of self sacrification for a greater good are a common motif in myths and heroic
tales with hundreds if not thousands of examples. Death and resurrection is not unique to Christian tradition either. It is the basic underlying myth of all agricultural societies (out of death comes new life, the seed 'dies', is 'buried' in mother earth and becomes 'resurrected' as a new plant in spring) and found in other myths (the sun-deity dies each evening and is resurrected next morning, the moon dies once in a month and is resurrected). Joseph Campbell in his
The hero with a thousand faces maintains that every hero has to 'die' - by giving up his ego - in order to fulfil the quest and is then 'resurrected' with a new consciousness at a higher level.
Or, in the provision of
lembas, can we not see the Eucharist. Before the Fellowship depart from
Lorien they have a final supper where the mystical
elvish bread lembas is shared, and they all drink from a common cup.
We can, but we must not. That is the 'applicability' Tolkien readily admits. Self-sacrification or sacrification of a god-king is found in rites from primitive cultures as well as in agricultural societies. The flesh of the sacrificed king was either eaten or spread over the
fields (depending whether it were hunter/gatherer/pastoral or agricultural societies). In Greece, for example, this was practiced up to the 2nd millennium BCE. Later someone else was made king just for this 'ceremony' - and the actual king continued to rule afterwards - and again later
animals were sacrificed (hence the sacrificial lamb) or the sacrification became an entirely symbolic ritual with no 'casualties'. In the OT it is Abraham sacrificing - or willing to sacrifice - his only son and and in the NT it was Christ sacrificing himself again. Thus Christianity merely 'inherited' or 'borrowed' that ritual from other - older - cultures and whether one decides to see this final supper in
Lórien as an allusion to the Eucharist (or another such ritual) or whether one sees it as an ordinary meal (sharing bread and drinking from one cup also wasn't invented by Christianity) is up to the reader. Applicabilty, not allegory, again....
Only if one purposely reads such things into the story, the allegory is there, if one doesn't it's applicability.
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But I suppose you will have to take up some reading, and make your homework, if you still intend to argue your teacher and people like this David Alten, Black Captain...
