In response to the previous entry, "U. of Auckland Features Seminars on Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Barbarians," CJ discusses Christian history and the influence of bibilical events on the work of these authors and others. 

The date of the Crucifixion has been a subject of speculation and debate among Christians for quite awhile, but not as long as you might think; this obsession with dates, and Biblical archaeology, is actually a Medieval phenomenon.  Jesus' contemporaries understood that the gospels, along with the books of the Hebrew Bible, were allegory--they weren't so much interested in the facts of the stories as in how, and to what extent, they legitimized Jesus' role as savior.  The authors of the gospels very consciously and purposefully call on Jewish theology and mythology, when discussing Jesus.  The most famous example of this is probably in John, chapter 6, which discusses the Eucharist.  John uses a writing technique called "bracketing" to place Jesus' actions within the context of not only the Jewish Passover feast, but also the contemporaneous Pagan harvest festival.  Many modern readers don't realize that this technique would have been obvious to most early Christians--just as the author of John intended it to be.

Edward James, Professor of Medieval History at Universty College, Dublin, is presenting two lectures at the University of Auckland, New Zealand.

The first of the lectures, and the most interesting for the Bard's purposes, is titled "J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis: Friendship, Religion, and Fantasy."  Professor James plans to discuss the shared Christian values of Tolkien and Lewis and how those values found their way into their writing, as well as the marked differences between the authors' work.

James had some interesting things to say about the different, but equally Christian, themes of The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia:

He says Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings is a more subtle expression of Christianity than Lewis' Narnia series, in which Christian allegory is clearly portrayed through the Christ-like Aslan the Lion.

"Tolkien described The Lord of the Rings as a 'Catholic epic', but the author was more interested in representing Christian values than Christian allegory," says Professor James, who notes Tolkien was instrumental in converting Lewis to Christianity. "Of course, there are Christ-like figures in the trilogy-- most notably, Gandalf and Frodo. And it's no accident that the Ring is destroyed on 25 March, the traditional medieval date for the original crucifixion. But Tolkien and Lewis approached Christianity very differently in their fantasy works," he says.

I had never heard (or noticed, I should say) the bit about the March 25th date and its Christian significance before reading this article.  It's probably not news to CJ, who has a background in medieval history.

The Catholic/Christian symbolism is, superficially, fairly obvious: Frodo sacrifices (or intends to) his life (for all intents and purposes -- he's never the same afterward) on the same date medieval scholars associated with Christ's messianic crucifixion.

The fact that Frodo actually becomes consumed by the Ring's power and is only able to get the job done with Gollum's help makes the interpretation more interesting, of course.  The fact that Tolkien sometimes referred to Middle-Earth as a primeval age of our old world also portends a larger picture -- are such sacrificial events merely history repeating itself? 

Professor James's other lecture concerns the differences in perception of barbarians between the Roman Empire and modern society and is titled "How to Recognize a Barbarian."

I think I can speak for both of us when I say that we wish our own respective colleges had seminars like this.  Go Auckland!