I've just read Silmarillion for the second time in my life. The last time was 20 years ago. In short, it's basically a "fantasy bible", starting out extremely abstract with how God creates these beings called "Ainor" which produce "music", and one of them, Melkor, makes his own, disharmonic music, and developers from there into the "Lord of Darkness"/Devil.
Interesting to note is that the author, J. R. R. Tolkien, was very much Christian. Apparently. But how does that fit with this fantasy vision of the world? Because, as he says himself in an interview, it is meant to be about the early history of this, our planet/world -- not some kind of distant alien planet or an alternative dimension.
This really got me thinking. After all, one of the commandments is all about how you aren't supposed to "depict other gods", but he very much does so with Silmarillion, which doesn't at all fit with the old or new testaments of the Christian/Jewish/standard bible.
I'm probably going to attempt to read the bible again soon, but I stopped when they got to the point, pretty early on, where they just started listing names for pages upon pages. Silmarillion has a very similar issue; it becomes extremely "heavy" to read due to the numerous names and aliases for everyone and everything.
Another major "problem" (or potential point of conflict) is that, in Tolkien's vision, humans are not the first creatures created after the initial beings/gods (called Ainur/Valar/Maior) -- instead, it's the elves, and only much later do humans appear, and when they do, they are made out to be very easily lured into evil deeds and horribly traitorous acts by Melkor, the Satans of Silmarillion.
This got me thinking a lot: what do Christians in general think of a work such as Silmarillion? Is it "disgusting heresy" or "an interesting fictional alternative history which of course isn't true but nevertheless interesting to read about, much like the other actual religions/beliefs which are obviously false but still have some interesting storytelling"?
