the christianity of beowulf

It is agreed by almost all critics that Beowulf was once a pre-Christian poem but no one is completely sure how it went from pre-Christian to Christian influenced. There are many ideas of how it was written and one of the most popular theories is that the poem was already in poetic form and the author's own beliefs were added. Another theory is that the poem was written by a Christian who heard the story …

…the story was changed more then just a little bit. If they were just coincidence then maybe its true that all that has to be done is change the word "God" to "fate" and all Christianity is gone and we see the poem in the relative original form, before the Christian influence was added. It is something we will never know unless an earlier version of Beowulf, before it may have been revised, is recovered.