Posted on 01/03/2017 2:22:39 PM PST by fishtank
Also a "higher critic" of the Bible.
I’m a young earth creationist,
but I don’t think it’s a doctrine that determines salvation.
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Have you ever observed who had -- literally -- "the last word" in LOTR...?
Have you ever considered what a tremendously masterful bit of writing that ending was?
For more years than I'd like to admit, I have read the entire Hobbit + LOTR series at least once a year -- usually when camping -- in my hammock...
Even so, each time, that ending laves me a bit "stunned" for a while -- as it leads me to mentally review the series -- and to muse on the bright future ahead for the one who has just journeyed through such vast darkness...
Religious? Perhaps not.
Numinious? Yes, indeed...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GorLBm35ZkE
From - “Clerks” esp at 2:22 for a great laugh about the “hobbit movies”
Fredric lives with his wife and their daughter in the Lansing, Michigan area, where he also works as an attorney. Born and raised in an atheist family, Fredric dismissed religion until his late teenage years when he abandoned atheism. He entered the Catholic Church in 2006 during his freshman year of college and loves sharing his story.
My understanding is that it has no effect on him simply because he pre-dates the ring and possibly its creator.
That’s one explanation. But Gandalf seems to write him off as a flibbertigibbet, and fears to entrust the Ring to him for fear he would simply misplace it. Given that Gandalf himself is a Ringbearer and one of the Valar, you would think he would recognize in Bombadil something of a kindred spirit if one was there. Instead, he dismisses him as a lightweight unworthy of carrying the Ring.
My own interpretation of the character is that he is the ultimate carefree spirit, detached from any concerns of the earth but his own, not in a selfish or narcisisstic way but more in the manner of a flighty child.
Correction: Gandalf was not one of the Valar; he was an Istari, a slightly lower caste.
Gandalf does express reservations because he thinks Tom simply doesn’t care.
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