Category Archives: 2 Kings

The Hobbit is a Biblically Inspired Story

[Guest post by Julian Crawford, Leader of the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party.]

smaug-the-hobbit-copy

It is well known that J.R.R. Tolkien was a devout Christian, who attended church daily and was responsible for bringing fellow author C.S. Lewis to faith.

What is less well known are the vast parallels between The Hobbit and The Bible, particularly the Old Testament.

While the Hobbits were based on English people and Elves speak a Celtic language, the Dwarves resemble the Jewish people. “The Dwarves… wouldn’t you say that in many ways they remind you of the Jews? Their words are Semitic, obviously, constructed to be Semitic,” Tolkien said in a 1971 interview.

In The Hobbit the company of Thorin Oakenshield travel to the Lonely Mountain of Erebor to reclaim their homeland and its vast gold reserves from the dragon Smaug. The Lonely Mountain shares many similarities to Mt Zion in Jerusalem, otherwise known as the Temple Mount.

The Dwarves had been driven out of their homeland and forced to “wander the wilderness” following Smaug’s capture of the mountain. The Jewish people were also forced into exile from their holy land.

The Dwarves lived in a grand cavern where their king’s throne was located while Mt Zion became the site of King David’s palace. His son Solomon build the temple there, which was the throne room of God.

Erebor is full of vast treasures particularly massive amounts of gold, just as the Jewish temple was full of gold ornaments.

The most precious treasure of the Dwarves was the Arkenstone, known as the King’s Jewel which was kept above the throne. The holy of holies in the Jewish temple was the site of the Ark of the Covenant. Inside the Ark were two sapphire stone tablets with the ten commandments written on them.

“He prepared the inner sanctuary within the temple to set the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord there.” – 1 Kings 6:19.

“Solomon covered the inside of the temple with pure gold, and he extended gold chains across the front of the inner sanctuary, which was overlaid with gold. So he overlaid the whole interior with gold. He also overlaid with gold the altar that belonged to the inner sanctuary.” – 1 Kings 6:21-22.

The Lonely Mountain and other dwarf kingdoms feature huge mines where the precious stones and metals were mined, while King Solomon also commissioned massive mines, known as King Solomon’s mines.

The vast wealth of the mountain corrupted the Dwarvish kings just as Jewish kings also became corrupted following the establishment of monarchy.

Five armies surround Erebor just as armies have often surrounded Jerusalem to try and capture the Temple Mount.

When the dragon drove the Dwarves out he become king under the mountain. In The Bible Satan is described as a dragon. Babylonian, Persian, Greek, Roman and Islamic empires have all conquered Jerusalem and are represented in the bible as beasts.

Babylon captured vast amounts of the gold in the Jewish temple and took it for itself until it was returned by the King of Persia, who allowed the destroyed temple to be rebuilt.

The Hobbit is an epic battle between the forces of good and evil involving many armies. It is apparent that an epic battle has also been raging for millennia to control Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. That battle continues right up until the present day, with Islamic groups such as ISIL and Hamas determined to make it the capital of their Islamic Caliphate. While Zionists are equally determined to rebuild Solomon’s Temple on the same site and solidify Jewish control of the Old City.

This is Jezebel

Then Jehu went to Jezreel. When Jezebel heard about it, she put on eye makeup, arranged her hair and looked out of a window. As Jehu entered the gate, she asked, “Have you come in peace, you Zimri, you murderer of your master?”

He looked up at the window and called out, “Who is on my side? Who?” Two or three eunuchs looked down at him. “Throw her down!” Jehu said. So they threw her down, and some of her blood spattered the wall and the horses as they trampled her underfoot.

Jehu went in and ate and drank. “Take care of that cursed woman,” he said, “and bury her, for she was a king’s daughter.” But when they went out to bury her, they found nothing except her skull, her feet and her hands. They went back and told Jehu, who said, “This is the word of the Lord that he spoke through his servant Elijah the Tishbite: On the plot of ground at Jezreel dogs will devour Jezebel’s flesh. Jezebel’s body will be like dung on the ground in the plot at Jezreel, so that no one will be able to say, ‘This is Jezebel.’” (NIV)