Mythical Typology in The Lord of the Rings

Authors

Andrew Jones, Concordia Seminary, St. LouisFollow

Document Type

Article

Keywords

gandalf, tolkien, frodo, galadriel, christian, evil, saruman, gollum

Submission Type

Bible Study; Lecture; Sermon Prep

Abstract

When considering potential gospel patterns in J. R. R. Tolkien’s work, every critic is met with two conflicting realities. Firstly, the presence of gospel patterns is abundantly apparent in Tolkien’s work. Secondly, Tolkien himself stated rather emphatically that he did not intend to create a Christian allegory. Clyde S. Kilby writes, “The story, says [Tolkien], is ‘not ‘about’ anything but itself ’ and certainly ‘has no allegorical intentions, general, particular or topical, moral, religious or political.’ [Tolkien] declares in fact that he has a ‘cordial dislike’ of allegory.”1

Disciplines

Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion

Scripture References in this Resource (separated by semi-colons)

Ephesians 4:9–10; Matthew 28:18b; Matthew 26:39; Ephesians 4:13; Ephesians 5:13-14; John 14:27;

Submission Cost

Free

Submission Audience

Laity; Ministers; Scholars

People in this Resource (separated by commas)

J. R. R. Tolkien, Clyde S. Kilby, Ralph C. Wood, Ronald Hutton, Christopher Garbowski,

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.

Recommended Citation

Jones, Andrew (2018) "Mythical Typology in The Lord of the Rings," Grapho : Concordia Seminary Student Journal: Vol. 1: Iss. 1, Article 6.
Available at: https://scholar.csl.edu/grapho/vol1/iss1/6