Biblical and Theological Commentary on The Hobbit, Part 1
Introduction and the Journey to Erebor (Until the Woodland Realm)
(avg. read time: 13–27 mins.)
To this point, I have written many posts of biblical and theological commentaries on Tolkien’s works:
J. R. R. Tolkien’s Theology of Sub-creation, Part 1: Mythopoeia
J. R. R. Tolkien’s Theology of Sub-creation, Part 2: On Fairy-Stories
J. R. R. Tolkien’s Theology of Sub-creation, Part 3: Tolkien’s Letters
Biblical and Theological Commentary on Tolkien’s Beowulf, Part 1
Biblical and Theological Commentary on Tolkien’s Beowulf, Part 2
Biblical and Theological Commentary on “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics”
Biblical and Theological Commentary on Tolkien’s Letters, Part 2: Letters #43–45 and #49
Biblical and Theological Commentary on Tolkien’s Letters, Part 6: Letters #208–#213, #246, and #250
This commentary will be my first foray into writing about such matters in Tolkien’s fiction. Necessarily, because of Tolkien’s beliefs about sub-creation outlined at the aforementioned links, and the setting of most of his work in an imaginary time before Christ, the biblical and theological resonances of the statements are typically going to be more indirect compared to Tolkien’s non-fiction. As noted in several of these links, Tolkien did not think his Secondary World should represent truths in their Primary World forms. And he established that Middle-earth in this imaginary time was essentially a world of monotheistic natural theology. Israel was not yet on the scene, thus Christ had not been incarnated, and so while there had been exercises of religion at times (as in Númenor), the world operates as one without revealed religion. There are only hints of what is to come, as is apropos both to the fact that Tolkien was a Christian, as well as more specifically to his Catholic theology of stressing continuity between the order of nature and the order of grace, despite the different fashions in which truths appeared in those orders.
Of Tolkien’s major fictional works, The Hobbit is the most indirect in terms of its biblical and theological connections. However, that is not to say there is nothing of relevance to our biblical and theological commentary. There is simply not as much of it, even relative to its length, compared to LOTR or The Silmarillion (especially). I should also note that, as with my previous post on The Hobbit, references will be by chapter number due to the variety of editions with different paginations.
On “Magic”
The first text of indirect relevance is from the opening chapter when Tolkien describes Hobbits: “There is little or no magic about them, except the ordinary everyday sort which helps them to disappear quietly and quickly when large stupid folk like you and me come blundering along, making a noise like elephants which they can hear a mile off.” The use of the word “magic” here sets off alarms for some Christian readers. I have talked about magic in the Bible and Tolkien’s work elsewhere, and I will be drawing from that talk here. By Tolkien’s own admission (Letters #131 and #155), he has not used the term “magic” consistently. This inevitably means that there is no distinct terminology used for the devices of Melkor, Sauron, and others as opposed to the works of Gandalf, Elrond, Galadriel, and others. There is also no different terminology used for when the work is the result of inherent power (such as angelic beings like Gandalf have) or when the work is the result of invocation of another power by spells or some other kind of manipulation. Thus, in Tolkien’s work, the term can have a positive connotation or a negative connotation (the latter being probably more common), depending on such factors as its motivation, purpose, or whether it is a capacity of the being or something they are using some illicit manipulation to achieve. In the Bible, the matter is more straightforward simply because all things associated with “magic,” “sorcery,” “witchcraft,” and so on are attempts to go outside of the covenantally established means of appealing to God (which would generally be by prayer and/or casting lots, or using the Urim and Thummim in certain situations), usually as a shortcut or workaround to achieving one’s own ends and in one’s own sense of the proper time rather than waiting upon the Lord, seeking his will, and waiting for his timing. Kevin Burr and I go into more detail on these things in the interview above, and I have also addressed it in scattered areas among my writings. I may return to the subject in more detail another time.
One also must consider the various contexts in which the term “magic” is used. In LOTR as a whole, the conceit of the story is that it is based on the Red Book of Westmarch, a work of Hobbits and thus told primarily from a Hobbit perspective. What they call “magic” would not necessarily be called the same by others who know more than they do, as we see in the conversation of Sam and Galadriel in the chapter “The Mirror of Galadriel.” For them, anything that may seem to be operating “out of the normal” or was seemingly “summoned to be” as if out of nothing would appear to be what they call “magic.” In this text, Tolkien speaks of an “ordinary everyday sort” of magic. This simply refers to the inherent capacity of Hobbits, which would seem strange, incomprehensible, and thus “magical” to us, as the narrator is speaking from the perspective of a person living in the modern world. “Magic” also has the connotation in this context of something wondrous, as also fits with how the Hobbits think of it.