[treis]

Who's Saruman's equivalent in the Bible?

Yes, there are some similarities but the entire story is markedly different. Jesus didn't die to come back as a more powerful Jesus 2.0 in order to defeat his former boss.

Gandalf's death had nothing to do with absolving the sins or saving the souls of humans. That's a fundamental aspect of Jesus' death and ressurection.

There are many more fundamental differences than there are similarities.

[olavk]

Sure there are many - differences otherwise it wouldn't be an original work! Christian mythology is just one source of inspiration. But are you disputing there is some amount of Christian allegory in LotR?

[treis]

Pretty much. There's no overarching theme to the LOTR that can be readily matched to a Christian one. Tolkein clearly borrowed a lot from various mythologies in weaving his story. Certainly Christianity was part of that. But it was inspiration and not allegory.

The point is not that there are differences. The point is that the differences are far more numerous and significant than the similarities.

[olavk]

I will not try to convince you otherwise then. It may however interest you that Tolkien himself said "'The Lord of the Rings' is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision." (https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/01/02/11/s...) - but the statements of an author about their own work should of course not always be taken at face values.