{"id":620,"date":"2013-02-24T19:44:46","date_gmt":"2013-02-24T19:44:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sabafamily.net\/joshua\/?p=620"},"modified":"2013-02-24T22:38:32","modified_gmt":"2013-02-24T22:38:32","slug":"the-hobbit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sabafamily.net\/joshua\/2013\/02\/the-hobbit\/","title":{"rendered":"The Hobbit"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Hobbit<\/span>, by J. R. R. Tolken, is the prelude to The Lord of the Rings<\/span>.\u00a0 It is the story of a hobbit named Bilbo Baggins, who lives in the land of Middle Earth. He does not like to go on adventures, but is persuaded by a band of dwarfs and a wizard named Gandalf, to go on an adventure. They go to the lonely mountain to fight the dragon Smaug, in order to win the dwarves back their gold and homeland.\u00a0 Along the way, he must face danger such as Bilbo has never known before.<\/p>\n

There are many hidden messages in the Hobbit, many of them Christian messages with relationships to characters in the Bible, or similar as to those in the Bible.\u00a0 There are so many Christian themes in the book, and lessons to learn, that it is very hard to remember them all.<\/p>\n

A very prominent Christian theme in the book is the relationship of Bible characters to main characters in the book.\u00a0 One example is Gandalf.\u00a0 He is like Jesus or God the Father, leading the group of dwarves and Bilbo, either presently with them, or helping them behind the scenes.\u00a0 He is a wizard who uses magic in his actions and in his wise words.\u00a0 He is always doing what is good for the dwarves and the hobbit even if they don\u2019t like it.\u00a0 He always has a reason for everything, even if you, the dwarves and Bilbo, or anyone else in the book doesn\u2019t understand it.\u00a0 He is just like Jesus in the sense that he was always there when the dwarves needed help or to be saved.\u00a0 Gandalf could also be viewed as Moses leading the Jews out of Egypt, and towards the Promised Land.\u00a0 In this case of course, he is leading the dwarves back to their homeland by the lonely Mountain, and freeing them from the state they were in of being dispersed all over Middle Earth.<\/p>\n

Another good example is Gollum.\u00a0 He has been separated from the outside world for so long that he has become less than man, so he is the example of a lost soul.\u00a0 Just like a lost soul or a person who has lost contact with God, and doesn\u2019t live accordingly like a child of God would.\u00a0 Gollum has lost contact with the outside world, so he has very few human qualities acting more like an animal.\u00a0 He uses the deep, dark cave that he lives in to shelter himself from the world above, just as a lost soul shelters himself willingly from God.<\/p>\n

A comparison that I found interesting is a good look at gold.\u00a0 Gold is almost like the devil.\u00a0 It tempts people, just like it did to Thorirn in the book.\u00a0 Greed filled him, even though he did eventually turn back to the good side.\u00a0 Gold can corrupt people by filling people with greed, even if they are a good person.\u00a0 The devil does the same thing by tricking, corrupting, and using people just like gold or money can.\u00a0 This is truly an interesting afterthought.<\/p>\n

Thorirn demonstrates free will.\u00a0 Thorirn is the leader of Bilbo and the band of dwarves that is going to fight the dragon. \u00a0Thorirn is brave, heroic, and true.\u00a0 However, when Throrin gets into the Lonely Mountain, and finds the ancient treasure room of his grandfather, he is astonished but not overwhelmed by the power of the gold.\u00a0 When Elves and the Lake men try to claim their rightful fair, Thorirn refuses to give them any.\u00a0 He is overcome with greed, and the power of all that gold comes over him.\u00a0 After a huge battle against a common enemy, he is mortally wounded, he repents on his deathbed, and becomes what he was, a heroic warrior.\u00a0 This is just like free will; even if you have sinned, you can always come back to God.<\/p>\n

Then of course there is the evil dragon Smaug.\u00a0 He is most relative to being like the devil.\u00a0 He is very crafty, and can very easily trick you if you are not careful.\u00a0 He is very strong, and very confident in himself.\u00a0 Even if you are aware that he might try and trick you, he might still get you.\u00a0 Sneaky is the one word that describes him.\u00a0 You can almost never catch him unawares.<\/p>\n

Another comparison to the Bible is the Dwarves journey to the Lonely Mountain, which is just like Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt from slavery, to the Promised Land, their homeland. \u00a0The dwarfs\u2019 homeland is the mountain.\u00a0 Just like Moses and the Israelites had to pass through the Red Sea, Bilbo and the dwarfs had to pass through Mirkwood, which was almost more dangerous than crossing the Red Sea.\u00a0 Smaug is the people of Jericho that were in the Promised Land that needed to be defeated to live there. Similarly, just like the dwarfs had to defeat Smaug to live in the mountain.\u00a0 The goblins, just like the Egyptians pursued the Israelites, pursued the dwarfs, elves, and lake men who were at the mountain, but the dwarfs and their allies defeated them to win back the mountain, just like the Israelites had to defeat the Egyptians to escape Egypt.<\/p>\n

A good lesson to learn in this book is one expressed by Gandalf.\u00a0 He states that the best way to fight evil is with small acts of kindness.\u00a0 This works because every time you do something right or good, you strengthen your guardian angel.\u00a0 But every time you do something bad, it weakens your guardian angel.\u00a0 In other words, we need to not only do what is right because it is right, but we need to do what\u2019s right to help our guardian angel out.<\/p>\n

\"\"

J.R.R. Tolkien<\/p><\/div>\n

J. R. R. Tolken wrote a great book series in the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings; it will always be one of my top books.\u00a0 He was a very Christian person, and a devout Roman Catholic.\u00a0 He wrote a good book series; correction, a great book series, being highly commemorated and remembered for these great works of Literature.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Hobbit, by J. R. R. Tolken, is the prelude to The Lord of the Rings.\u00a0 It is the story of a hobbit named Bilbo Baggins, who lives in the land of Middle Earth. He does not like to go on adventures, but is persuaded by a band of dwarfs and a wizard named Gandalf, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,77,78,32,21,22,23,76],"class_list":["post-620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-review","tag-69","tag-action","tag-adventure","tag-biographies","tag-book-reports","tag-book-reviews","tag-books","tag-fantasy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sabafamily.net\/joshua\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sabafamily.net\/joshua\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sabafamily.net\/joshua\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sabafamily.net\/joshua\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sabafamily.net\/joshua\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=620"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/sabafamily.net\/joshua\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":632,"href":"https:\/\/sabafamily.net\/joshua\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620\/revisions\/632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sabafamily.net\/joshua\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sabafamily.net\/joshua\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sabafamily.net\/joshua\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}