My first exposure to J.R.R. Tolkien was the Bakshi films from the nineteen seventies. I was in elementary school and they had hobbits, dragons, dwarves, orcs, and wizards; what could possibly be better? They awoke in me a curiosity for their source material so in 6th grade, I read The Hobbit and in 7th grade, I read The Lord of the Rings. Over the years I have read the original material, including The Silmarillion, over a dozen times; I’ve even taken a college level course on the works of Tolkien.
Today, I find Bakshi’s animated interpretations of The Lord of the Rings barely watchable. The cartoon is but a mere shadow of the actual text. Where The Lord of the Rings is the most fully realized world ever created in literature, the animated films have plot holes the size of a Boeing 747. The older I get the more depth and richness I find in Tolkien’s Middle Earth; I could study it for a lifetime and not plumb its depths. The same could not be said for Bakshi’s films.
Wouldn’t it be sad if my only exposure to Tolkien and the epic of The Lord of the Rings had remained the Bakshi films? I would have outgrown them by the time I was a freshman in high school. How about if I was to have a debate on the merits of the works of Tolkien with a true Tolkien scholar, and my only exposure had been the Bakshi films? Though the names and characters might be familiar, it would be as if we were talking about entirely different stories, because in essence, that is exactly what we would be doing.
As a pastor for over thirty years, there have been many times I have had this same experience when chatting with people about the Christian faith. Many people have had the Christian story communicated to them by hardcore fundamentalists. In this version, we read about an angry god, who like Santa Clause, is making a list and checking it twice, finding out who has been naughty or nice, and if you have broken any of the rules then he sent his son and had him killed for you, so that if you have said that you believe in him you don’t spend eternity being burned alive but can do whatever you want to because you have gotten the get out of hell free card (I’ve oversimplified this belief system and have been a bit tongue in cheek).
That story is to the Christian faith/Biblical Christianity what Bakshi’s film is to The Lord of the Rings; a cartoon.
Many times when I’m discussing the Christian faith with individuals I find that they have real issues with the cartoon but that they really have no exposure to the actual story. These are people who have often grown-up in the church and know the stories of the Bible from Sunday School, but they have been interpreted through the lens of biblical literalism and fundamentalism (by literalism I mean taking things that are clearly allegory and/or imagery and interpreting them literally).
Now I am not a Bible scholar, just a pastor of thirty years with a background in English Literature. I have been a serious student of the Biblical text since 1987. I’m going to be writing a series of blog posts on how I see the Biblical narrative. You are free to disagree with me, ask questions, and bring critique. Remember, this is my take on The Bible, and how it has shaped my faith. I’m not writing in some official capacity. I’m not trying to change you, I’m not even saying I’m right (Actually, I know that I’m probably wrong about several things...I just don’t know which points they are) I’m just sharing how I see and understand what I’ve studied.
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