written in the light of Christianity or as an allegory, there is a great presence of religious symbolism throughout his epic. Urang agrees in his statement, "The Lord of the Rings, although it contains no ‘God’, no ‘Christ’, and no ‘Christians’, embodies much of Tolkien’s ‘real religion’ and is a profoundly a Christian work." Tolkien, whether by mistake or purposely, seems to relate the adventures and acts of his characters Bilbo and Gandalf closely to the acts of Christ in the Bible. In the "The Hobbit", Bilbo often acted as Jesus would in the Bible. Confronted with the possession of the evil Ring of power, Bilbo was often tempted to use the Ring in excess and for wrong reasons. However the strong willed hobbit never succumbed to that evil power, much like when Jesus resists the temptation of Satan in the desert in Matthew 3:16. In short, the passage explains how the Lord, after fasting for forty days and forty nights, resists the temptation to create food and feast. He then is tested by Satan to call upon his angels to save him from deadly leap off of the highest point of a high precipice. Jesus simply turns Satan away again. Also, one of Bilbo’s descendants, Frodo, was burdened with the temptation of the Ring. Frodo knew of the power that the Ring held and knew that he could either be a great evil power himself, or that this great evil thing must be destroyed. The end of the "Lord of the Rings" results in the destruction of the Ring and, along with it, the death of Frodo. "Frodo learns- and thus teaches- what for Tolkien is the deepest of all Christian truths: how to surrender one’s life, how to lose one’s treasure, how to die, and thus how truly to live." (Wood, 208) Another Christian-like manifestation of Tolkien’s creative imagination is the character of Gandalf, the good wizard. "Gandalf, the Christ-like wizard who lays down his life for his friends, k...
