Of Tolkien and the Bible

When I was twelve or thirteen, something odd but not entirely uncommon for boys that age happened to me. I read The Hobbit and the three books of The Lord of the Rings. It helped me through a very rough patch in my life, and I have very fond memories of the time.

I read of Bilbo meeting his dwarf companions while up in a tree. I was enraptured as Frodo and his friends eluded the Nazgul while in a rowboat as my dad taught my brother to fish. Galadriel and the elves nourished the fellowship as I sat in my dad’s parked red Volare: on the front seat, the back seat, the fender, the hood, the roof. The tower of Isengard fell to the Ents while I perched on log at the stock car races. Shelob chased and overcame poor Frodo while I read terrified under my dining room table. I followed the apocalyptic battle at Minis Tirith to the light of my grandmother’s washing machine.

It probably took me to six to eight months to read the works. I had to finish them by the start of school that fall, my freshman year at high school, because there’d be an essay required on it. Which I aced. But the odd thing happened in the year or so afterward.

I became absolutely and completely fascinated with everything Tolkien. I was like a hungry convert to a new religion. I had to find out the history. What of the First and Second Ages, those tantalizing hints placed liberally throughout the texts? I soon set upon my first reading of The Silmarillion. But while that prologue answered many of my questions, it left many more unsolved. So, I set upon a voyage of discovery. I researched the lands, their histories, the maps, the linguistics (easily Tolkien’s genius and his inspiration). I traced genealogies. I studied the names of the fortresses, the mountains, forests, lakes, and rivers, the cities.

One major theme interested me to no end: the problem of Evil, and how we deal with it. The Lord of the Rings himself, Sauron, fascinated me. His minions, obvious ones, such as the Nazgul, Orcs, Trolls, other nasties, haunted forests, and the more subtle forms of his malice: the lure of power, the poison of pride. As a counterbalance, the wizards, the Istari, fascinated me, too, especially this tidbit: five were sent to Middle Earth, yet only three are named in the LotR – Gandalf, Saruman, and Radagast the Brown. Why? Who were the other two? Where were they sent? Why was each wizard given a color, and what was its significance? And were they really – angels?

I devoured those Tolkien companions and encyclopedias. Literally, I would sit on the couch while the family watched TV or a movie, and I’d spend two hours leafing through it, stream-of-consciousness, searching for clues to old questions, and learning more and more about this fantasy world. It became a huge chunk of my life.

Then, near the end of my sophomore year, the compulsion stopped. It was replaced by music, which consumed me for a long, long time. Still does, but not quite as ravenously.

This has been on my mind lately because of, well, see that thing to the left, there? Current Reads? Currently, I’m reading The Day Christ Died by Jim Bishop. Full review to follow in the near future, but suffice it to say that, since I picked it up a few weeks back (I got distracted but returned to it a week-and-a-half ago) I have been pulled towards Biblical history, with much passion similar to the way I was pulled towards Tolkien’s world over twenty-five years ago.

Bishop’s book details quite nicely the day-to-day life of a Jew in Jerusalem around 30 AD. What do I mean by ‘quite nicely’? Only that it paints an extremely vivid picture of the dress, homes, occupations, interrelationships, beliefs, and social strata of the people who lived at this time. I think I have a highly active imagination, but I always had trouble making scripture come alive. This book is helping, a lot. Fills in the blanks. Lays down the lines that allows my imagination to color the picture, so to speak.

And one consequence is that I now have a raging interest in the history and archaeology of those times. Much like my quest to know all the inner workings of the Tolkien universe, now I must know everything about, oh, the Middle East region from about 4000 BC to AD 70.

For instance, I’ve been reading the past couple of nights about some of the Kings of Israel and Judah, that probably 99% of Christians have never read or heard. Stuff that would rival the debaucheries of imperial Rome. Stuff that would make an interesting blog post down the road. Stuff that I think were taught to pre-teen and teen boys could possibly and perversely result in an increase in vocations. Or at least greater Bible literacy in today’s comparatively illiterate world.

Fortunately, my Bible at home has an extensive introduction – nearly a hundred pages – consisting of chronology, maps, kingly lineages, historical articles, etc, etc, etc. So I’ve been going through that, and I got a fat encyclopedic book from the library that goes through the bible book by book and points out interesting miscellanea from this type of angle. I thumb through it while the wife feeds the baby and we’re channel surfing and / or relaxing after the Little One’s put to bed at 8. Makes for a relaxing evening; it’s what floats my boat.

More to follow, from a weird trivia perspective …