I posted what I thought was a pretty big breakthrough connecting the dwarves as Gentiles by expanding on the theory that the brother of Jared entered Moria to get the 16 stones used to illuminate their barges. WJT posted a comment with some Bible quotes that seem to lend credence to the idea.
Here’s his comment:
In Genesis 22, the story of the Binding of Isaac, Abraham (Aule?) takes his son (the Dwarves?) to the top of a mountain in “the land of Moriah.” They have to leave their beasts of burden behind when they ascend (consistent with a stair), and the visitation they experience at the peak gives rise to the saying “In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen.”
The only other reference to Moriah in the Bible is also about an appearance of the Lord: “Solomon began to build the house of the Lord at Jerusalem in mount Moriah, where the Lord appeared unto David his father” (2 Chr. 3:1).
These verses work pretty well to support the theory since Moriah is so close to Moria and since the Bible tale of Abraham sacrificing Isaac has so many similarities to the tale of Aule creating the dwarves.
WJT then wrote a post of his own citing some connections to tales of Abraham with Aule and his dwarves.
As I commented there:
I was curious how Moriah is pronounced in Hebrew since, in English, most people would probably say “muh-rai-uh”. According to this site, it sounds pretty much identical to how it’s pronounced in the Tolkien legendarium, “mor-ee-uh”.
Nice! The wins are stacking up! My favorite part of WJT’s post was when he referenced a couple Bible verses that speak of Abraham’s children as stone. I’m quoting from WJT using italics below:
*begin quote*
Also fitting curiously well into the Aulë story is a strange statement attributed to Jesus in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke:
And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham (Matt. 3:9, Luke 3:8).
How is God able to do that? Even an omnipotent Supergod would not be able to paint a genuine Rembrandt, for the simple reason that, by definition, only Rembrandt can do that. In the same way, even if God could turn stones into children, they wouldn’t be Abraham’s children unless they were produced by Abraham. If you replace Abraham with Aulë, though, this “hard saying” becomes intelligible. The Dwarves were Aulë’s children, created by him from stones, but it was God who “raised them up” to the status of true children.
Isaiah, too, uses the imagery of Abraham’s children being made from stone:
Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the Lord: look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged. Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bare you: for I called him alone, and blessed him, and increased him (Isa. 51:1-2).
*end quote*
I highlighted “pit” because Moria translates as “black pit/chasm”. Aule is said to have created the first dwarves in a hall deep beneath the mountains of Middle Earth. It could have been beneath Moria, but regardless, I think we could say it was in a “pit” that he did this. Other translations say “quarry” instead of pit and that works too.
However, as much as I love both of those Bible references, I think only the NT one helps with the Gentiles-as-dwarves theory.
In the NT verse, Jesus is speaking to Israelites who boast in their relation to Abraham as if this guarantees them something or that maybe God can’t get by without them. But Jesus seemingly rebukes them with the tale of Aule creating adopted children from stone (the dwarves). So God actually doesn’t need the Israelites at all and that’s why Nephi can say
…as many of the Gentiles as will repent are the covenant people of the Lord; and as many of the Jews as will not repent shall be cast off…
It won’t matter much who you descend from in the end.
But the Isaiah verse WJT cites I don’t think relates to dwarves after all. I was thinking about that verse yesterday because it references “Sarah that bare you”. Nothing in the dwarves origin story fits w that. I hoped there would be something from Yavanna in the Silmarillion that would let me interpret her as Sarah but she is pretty clear that the dwarves are Aule’s children. Plus, she had no involvement in their creation, a fact she laments. It leads to her own creation of Ents eventually. Of them I think we could say “Yavanna bare them”. But not the dwarves without a lot of stretching.
Funny enough, I was thinking about this yesterday in the kitchen while my wife was wrapping up dinner prep. I said:
“did you know there are a couple of Bible verses that refer to Abraham’s children as being crafted from stone a lot like how Aule made the dwarves?”
And I kid you not, she said:
“ok, then what does it mean that Sarah bore them?”
I stared at her completely dumbfounded. How in the world did she know to say that? I honestly thought maybe she was reading my mind or something. The truth is, that morning she had read 2 Nephi 8 wherein Nephi quotes those verses from Isaiah that WJT connected to the dwarves. She is used to me talking about dwarves so she read that verse and saw dwarvish connections all on her own and then thought the same question about Sarah that I was pondering later in the day. She doesn’t read WJT or even this blog so she arrived at the same question completely independent from me other than knowing I have this theory. And on the same day I arrived at the same question. Wild stuff.
Anyway, today, Bill is posting about Jesus as the cornerstone and I think that is probably what solves the riddle? I’m not sure but I think this verse in Isaiah is in the context of Israel, not dwarves, and the stone referenced must be Jesus as the cornerstone from which those “that follow after righteousness” are cut? But I am open to other interpretations if anyone has one. Is Sarah Yavannah? Is there any way to say she “bare” the dwarves?
If not I think we can’t rely on those verse to help on any dwarf connections, as much as I would like to.
WJT
The Sarah thing is definitely a loose end. It’s not only that verse, either. Throughout scripture, all of Abraham’s children have clearly identified mothers.
A bigger problem for your theory is that Abraham is always presented as the father of the Israelites, not the Gentiles. In the NT, when the Jews point to Abraham as their father, their point is precisely that they are NOT Gentiles. This can’t easily be squared with Tolkien, where Aule is the father of the Dwarves only, and it would be odd for children of Iluvatar to brag about being descended from Aule.
My own view is that the Bible is corrupted, and that Tolkien at best saw through a glass, darkly, and that inconsistencies are to be expected. That makes it hard to figure out the underlying truth, though.
LEE
True, it’s much more than just this verse. And yes, we may have a Bible that is just too corrupted to trust very much but I’m trying to work under the assumption that it’s mostly accurate if read the correct way. In theory, Aule did father the dwarves but then he is also connected to the Noldor pretty closely. Those who remained in Valinor seem to have adopted Aule in that form, calling themselves “Aulenosse”, meaning “The Family of Aule” (as Bill pointed out on your post). If Aule is also Abraham, you could say he was involved with “Israelite” clans in that form. In fact I believe that is what Daymon’s books say IIRC, that he was a father to certain clans. If true, then in a few different ways the same being is a father to Gentile and Israel.
WJT
Just after posting the above comment, questioning the idea that Elves or Men would think of themselves as children of Aule, I happened to read in The Silmarillion about how the Noldor “are the Deep Elves, the friends of Aule.”
WW
Just one quick nit and then maybe a more substantive comment.
You have Jesus being recorded as talking about Stones and Abraham’s children, but it was actually John quoted in both Matthew and Luke.
“Raise up” can mean something different than giving birth to, creating, or parenting a child. As in, it can literally mean “raising”.
I hate bringing this up because I am not a linguist and don’t know what I am talking about, and I am not sure it is important, but the word for “raise” here in the Greek for the New Testament coincides with this other definition. That word apparently is ἐγεῖραι. In doing a quick check on its meaning, you get things like “wake up, stir, resurrect or raise from the dead/sick, raise (build or elevate)” etc. It could be that parenting is also included, I just didn’t see it in my quick look (and even if it wasn’t, I’d be cool with creatively applying it if necessary). So, not to say it can’t be how you interpret it, but only to say it could be something else.
For me, in light of other things, I have considered it a better fit for John to be talking about Stones ‘raising’ children to Abraham, rather than children being conjured out of stone. That obviously fits well with my story, and what Stones do, which is likely why I see it that way and could be too creative a reading. Just throwing that out there.
LEE
Good call out on John vs Jesus. My mistake on that. I can see your idea of the Stones raising people up in a spiritual way. The context makes that reading of it somewhat difficult for me though. I’m imagining John out in a rocky wilderness and gesturing to some random rocks as he makes that statement. In your reading I think we’d have to assume he has the Stones you reference right there with him? But I don’t think we can place them there in your story can we?
I have a feeling that the way Aule crafted the dwarves through stone craft ties in to how Jesus accomplished his own resurrection and is how he will in fact resurrect others so that is also part of the framing around how I’m reading those verses. Not that we will all resurrect as stone dwarves, just that I think Jesus took that stone craft idea and put his own spin on it as a solution for the disembodied (himself included). I think that idea fits really well with the Greek definition of that word you cited:
To arise, to stand from a prone or sleeping position. From this base meaning are several fig. extended meanings: to wake from sleep; to restore from a dead or damaged state: to heal, raise to life; to cause something to exist: raise up (give birth to) a child