Editing Elendil (section)

=== Biblical echoes ===

{{see also|The Silmarillion#Themes}}

[[File:Milano Chiesa di San Maurizio al Monastero Maggiore Innen Halle der Nonnen Gemälde 3 (corrected).jpg|thumb|upright=0.9|Tolkien compared Elendil to the Biblical [[Noah]], who similarly escaped from the wreck of a civilisation by ship.<ref name="Letter 131" group=T/> Fresco in [[San Maurizio al Monastero Maggiore]], Milan]]

[[Nicholas Birns]], a scholar of literature, notes Elendil's survival of Númenor's fall, an event that recalls to him both Plato's [[Atlantis]] and the Biblical [[fall of man]]; he notes that Tolkien called Elendil a "Noachian figure",<ref name="Letter 131" group=T>{{harvnb|Carpenter|2023|loc=Letter #131 to [[Milton Waldman]], late 1951 }}</ref> an echo of the biblical [[Noah]].<ref name="Birns 2020">{{cite journal |last=Birns |first=Nicholas |author-link=Nicholas Birns |title=The Stones and the Book: Tolkien, Mesopotamia, and Biblical Mythopoeia |journal=Tolkien and the Study of His Siurces, ed. Jason Fisher |date=15 July 2011 |page=10 |url=https://www.academia.edu/4850214 |access-date=11 August 2020}}</ref> Tolkien explains that Elendil "held off" from the Númenórean rebellion, and had kept ships ready; he "flees before the overwhelming storm of the wrath of the West [from [[Valinor]]], and is borne high upon the towering waves that bring ruin to the west of the Middle-earth."<ref name="Letter 131" group=T/> Birns notes that Elendil, who he calls a hugely important figure in Middle-earth, must be later "in comparative time" than Noah; where Noah was a refugee, Elendil was "an imperialist, a founder of realms". However, he grants that "Noachian" implies a class of people like Noah, and the possibility of different kinds of flood. Birns comments that Middle-earth has its [[Creation (Bible)|Creation]] and [[Noah's flood|Flood]] myths, but not exactly a fall of man. He suggests that Tolkien, as a Catholic, may have been more comfortable working with the forces of nature seen in Creation and Flood, but preferred to leave the fall alone; he notes that both Creation and Flood are found in non-Christian tales from the Middle East, citing the ''[[Epic of Gilgamesh]]'' for the Flood and the [[Enuma Elish]] for Creation.<ref name="Birns 2020"/>

The priest and Tolkien scholar [[Fleming Rutledge]] writes that Aragorn, narrating the Lay of [[Beren and Lúthien]] to the hobbits, tells them that Lúthien's line "shall never fail". Rutledge talks of the "kings of Númenor, that is Westernesse", and as they gaze at him, they see that the moon "climbs behind him as if to crown him", which Rutledge calls an echo of the [[Transfiguration of Jesus|Transfiguration]]. Rutledge explains that Aragorn is of the line of Elendil and knows he will inherit "the crown of Elendil and the other Kings of vanished Númenor", just as Jesus is of the line of [[King David]], fulfilling the prophecy that the line of Kings would not fail.<ref name="Rutledge 2004">{{cite book |last=Rutledge |first=Fleming |author-link=Fleming Rutledge |title=The Battle for Middle-earth: Tolkien's Divine Design in The Lord of the Rings |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FRiViwMylSUC&pg=PA83 |year=2004 |publisher=[[Wm. B. Eerdmans]] |isbn=978-0-8028-2497-4 |page=83}}</ref>

Zak Cramer notes in ''Mallorn'' that Tolkien's middle name, Reuel, means "God's friend", and could be written "El's friend" with reference to the Hebrew word for "God". He speculates that Elendil, "Elf-friend", may have been a wordplay on this name.<ref name="Cramer 2006">{{cite journal |last1=Cramer |first1=Zak |title=Jewish Influences in Middle-earth |journal=[[Mallorn (journal)|Mallorn]] |date=2006 |issue=44 (August 2006) |pages=9–16 |jstor=45320162}}</ref>