Eric Zhao 2025 1 14 https://mustardfox.org/zzhaoe-002I/ zzhaoe-002I /zzhaoe-002I/ on Tom Bombadil as unfallen Adam musings The latest issue of Mallorn has a nice article positing that Tom Bombadil represents Tolkien's conception of an unfallen Adam.Any article claiming to have 'cracked' the enigma of Tom Bombadil is inevitably met with a wary feeling; it's like seeing an arXiv paper claiming to have solved . As the author mentions, the idea of an Adamic identity is not new, having appeared, apparently, in obscure fanzines from the 1970s, in Shippey's The Road to Middle-Earth, and in a 2018 article by Jane Beal.A quick search also pulls up a number of pages with similar ideas. This reddit post summarizes the important points rather well. But the author argues that Tom is not identical to Adam nor prelapsarian, as he doesn't appear to be the progenitor of all man-kind and betrays none of Adam's weakness; he embodies, instead, "an alternative Adam who never fell," that is, "what would have happened had the serpent... failed".Joy 2024, p. 26, emphasis original. I suppose I would wonder, then, why Tom has no progeny; this is the one point that seems incongruent with the divine command in Genesis 1:28: "And God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth,'" it says. Perhaps he just hasn't yet gotten around to it. Otherwise, the issue contains three other research articles. I passed over the two about elements of horror in The Lord of the Rings (specifically, the use of 'gaps and indeterminacies') and about renunciations of immortality. The last discusses the ex nihilo nature of Ungoliant herself and her ability to create Unlight; such notions have disturbing implications for the Tolkienian cosmology. It was interesting but could, I think, have been about half the length. References Context Backlinks Related Stephen Joy 2024 https://mustardfox.org/joy-2024/ joy-2024 /joy-2024/ Adam Unfallen: Cracking the Bombadil Enigma reference Mallorn: Issue 65, Winter 2024 2024 https://mustardfox.org/mallorn-65/ mallorn-65 /mallorn-65/ Mallorn: Issue 65, Winter 2024 reference 0308-6674 Perry Neil Harrison 2024 https://mustardfox.org/harrison-2024/ harrison-2024 /harrison-2024/ On Nothing: Tolkien, Ungoliant, and Anselmian Thought reference Mallorn: Issue 65, Winter 2024 Jane Beal 2018 https://mustardfox.org/beal-2018/ beal-2018 /beal-2018/ Who is Tom Bombadil?: Interpreting the Light in Frodo Baggins and Tom Bombadil's Role in the Healing of Traumatic Memory in J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings reference https://scholar.valpo.edu/journaloftolkienresearch/vol6/iss1/1/ Journal of Tolkien Research: Vol. 6: Iss. 1 Tom Shippey 1982 https://mustardfox.org/shippey-the-road-to-middle-earth/ shippey-the-road-to-middle-earth /shippey-the-road-to-middle-earth/ The Road to Middle-Earth reference J.R.R. Tolkien 1955 1954 https://mustardfox.org/tolkien-the-lord-of-the-rings/ tolkien-the-lord-of-the-rings /tolkien-the-lord-of-the-rings/ The Lord of the Rings reference https://mustardfox.org/janebeal/ janebeal /janebeal/ Jane Beal person Professor of English University of La Verne https://mustardfox.org/tomshippey/ tomshippey /tomshippey/ Tom Shippey person https://tomshippey.com/ Professor Emeritus Saint Louis University Contributions