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TeacherAide The First Epic SESSION 3 ILLUSTRATING
THE POINT No Middle Ground in Middle Earth Behind The Lord of the
Rings epic trilogy is The Silmarillion, another of Tolkien's
works, which explains the formation of Middle Earth and depicts another struggle
between good and evil. In The Silmarillion,
Iluvator (God) created the world through music. One angel, Melkor, was
"jealous of the power of creation" and struck a note of disharmony.
Instead of destroying his creation, Iluvator gave his creatures the freedom to
make choices between darkness and light, between goodness and mercy. It is the conflict between
the peace-loving Hobbits and ruthless Orcs that resonates with us today. As
Peter Jackson, director of The Lord of the Rings, said, "You
sort of get the impression—which can be depressing—that Tolkien's themes
really resonate today and that they're probably going to resonate in 50 years
and then in 100 years. I don't think humans are capable of actually pulling
themselves out of these basic ruts." Terry
Mattingly, "Rings' Trilogy Goes Beyond Good Vs. Evil"
and Duane Dudek, "The Two Towers Echoes with Contemporary
Parallels," Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel (12-12-02) Human Capacity for Evil Perhaps belief in the
biblical doctrine of depravity is making a comeback. Even before the September
11 attack on America, a Newsweek cover story focused on the human
capacity for evil. Author Sharon Begley writes: In their search for the
nature and roots of evil, scholars from fields as diverse as sociology,
psychology, philosophy and theology are reaching a…chilling conclusion. Most
people do have the capacity for horrific evil, they say: the traits of
temperament and character from which evil springs are as common as flies on
carrion. Psychologist Robert I. Simon, director of the program of Psychiatry and
Law at Georgetown University School of Medicine, says, "The capacity for
evil is a human universal." Citation:
Sharon Begley, "The Roots of Evil," Newsweek (5-21-01),
pp. 31-32 THE
MORE YOU KNOW “The forbidden fruit is the
fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden, often
pictured as an apple, that God commanded Adam—and through Adam, Eve—not to
eat. Their disobedience brought on the Fall. Today, the expression “forbidden
fruit” is used commonly to refer to anything that is tempting but potentially
dangerous. It’s often associated with sexual matters.” “Somewhere in history, a
story was started that when Adam took the first bite of the “apple” and
tried to swallow it, the piece of forbidden fruit stuck in his throat because he
felt so guilty. So ever since then the slight projection at the front of the
throat formed by the largest cartilage of the larynx, which is usually more
prominent in men than in women, has been called the “Adam’s apple”.
-The
New Manners and Customs of the Bible I
THOUGHT I HEARD YOU SAY “Every temptation that
comes to me is packaged as a good.”
Eugene Peterson “It is startling to think
that Satan can actually come into the heart of a man in such close touch with
Jesus as Judas was. And more—he is cunningly trying to do it today. Yet he can
get in only through a door opened from the inside. Every man controls the door
of his life. Satan can’t get in without our help.”
S. D. Gordon “No one can be caught in a
place he does not visit.”
Danish proverb “Nothing is easier than
sinning.”
Martin
Luther “The real danger in our
situation lies in the fact that so many people see clearly what they are
revolting from and so few see at all what they are revolting to.”
Harry Emerson Fosdick “Original sin was a lust
after self-sufficient knowledge, a craving to shake off all external authority
and work things out for himself.”
J. I. Packer
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