Hebrew Alphabet & Tarot
Ross G Caldwell
Hebrew is a "revived" language - Ben Yehuda's dictionary (or the English-Hebrew one based on it) is the one I began learning with, and still have after 35 years. I didn't realize at the time how controversial his attempt at revival was, but Hebrew is alive and well now, thanks to him, Zionism and the establishment of Israel as a nation.
Yiddish is an example of the same processes that shaped the Romance languages after the decline of Rome.
If the Vatican were a real country, with citizens speaking Latin and having babies and teaching them Latin ("neo-Latin"), then we could speak of Latin as a "living" language.
It is "living" in the sense that Hebrew was after the first century - learned and spoken by scholars, but not taught from infancy as the primary language of day to day activities.
Yiddish is an example of the same processes that shaped the Romance languages after the decline of Rome.
If the Vatican were a real country, with citizens speaking Latin and having babies and teaching them Latin ("neo-Latin"), then we could speak of Latin as a "living" language.
It is "living" in the sense that Hebrew was after the first century - learned and spoken by scholars, but not taught from infancy as the primary language of day to day activities.
Richard
However, I wonder how many of those 55 would insist that the true purpose of Tarot is divination. Also, there may have been some who voted 'No' just because they fervently do not want there to be a Hebrew connection. There is no reason to assume that all 55 'No' votes came from people who are historically savvy regarding Tarot.
Ross G Caldwell
True, but even if it is a popular or technically ignorant "yes", it is still the "common wisdom", which, while often misguided, is right in this case and many cases. It'd be no different if most people voted "yes" on a question like "Do species evolve?", or "Does the Earth go around the Sun"?
Most people couldn't give you the details or explain why it is so, but their instinctive "yes" would be correct. This shows that education, filtering through or self-sought, is working.
Zephyros
If I understand you correctly, which I'm not sure I do, then I disagree.
Tarot is a fairly small niche and in that niche the majority of users are fortune-tellers. Not to disparage anyone, but there it is. Very few people are actually interested in its roots, and are probably even unaware that Hebrew has anything to do with it in the first place. If anyone is aware, that means that they are either members of a community such as this, in which the GD and assorted things are mentioned fairly often, or they took the time to find out on their own. Call me a mean old lady, and you would be right, but under those circumstances, I honestly think they should know better, and why not? Some people have vast theories about the subject and while I disagree with them, I do respect the lengths that they go to in order to prove them. Others who have no real opinion and simply "believe"... well... some people don't "believe" in climate change or say that recent cold weather refutes it, but that doesn't make their opinions valid, unless they go the "mystical" route of finding patterns in Creation, which is what I feel is what the study of the occult affords. But that doesn't mix with history.
Wow, I am just a mean, mean person, aren't I?
Ross G Caldwell
If I understand you correctly, which I'm not sure I do, then I disagree.
I don't understand the point at which, or with which, you disagree.
This is indisputably true -
"A stopped clock is right twice a day" is a bit extreme, but that's the idea. If the opinion is correct, for whatever reason, it is correct.
So your disagreement must be with this -
I suppose it is a bit vague, but the "for whatever reason" clause in the statement above is what I meant. It is meant to be implied.
It is ultimately the argument from authority, since most people couldn't prove why they believe most of what they believe about history or science, but outside of polemical issues like man-made climate change or evolution - scientific commonplaces that have socio-political consequences and are therefore likely to give skewed results because of massive propaganda - polls about issues that don't affect people's lives directly or impose on religious beliefs or political persuasions, like heliocentrism (also in the historically recent past disputed because of socio-political implications) - polls will show that people will give the correct answer.
This is what I mean by "education... is working". People are taught it, they believe it, and it is right.
The fact that education can be abused - usually "propaganda" is a derogatory term, although essentially it is neutral, it just means "that knowledge which is to be propagated" - is irrelevant here. Whether people say they beleive that the Earth goes around the Sun because they were taught it and knew it was the right answer on a test and never really thought about it, or because everybody else does and and they would be ridiculed for saying otherwise, is irrelevant. What matters is that they believe correctly, which shows that at least one part of education's purpose is working - the propaganda part, namely getting everyone to agree on basic principles.
That might make me a mean person - I don't care why you believe the truth, I just care that you do. Dangerous in principle, but my motives are good (doesn't every ideologue say that?).
I imagine that most of the people who answered the poll are self-selected and therefore have an informed opinion, relatively speaking at least, of the subject, which is why it heartened me. It means that the propaganda is working. The message is that the Hebrew alphabet and the implications of Kabbalah and all the other stuff that makes people's heads spin and their imaginations take flights to giddying heights was not part of the inventor of the trump sequence's intention.
Like heliocentrism, it doesn't matter to me if people can explain the historical reasons for that conclusion, it just matters that the majority of those who have even cursorily considered the question take the correct conclusion away from their investigation. This means the de-mythification of Tarot is working, for the time being at least, and that is a good thing because it implies that most people can understand a rational argument.
The exceptions, of course, come from where religious belief enters - in Tarot as elsewhere.
Call me a mean old lady, and you would be right, but under those circumstances, I honestly think they should know better, and why not? Some people have vast theories about the subject and while I disagree with them, I do respect the lengths that they go to in order to prove them. Others who have no real opinion and simply "believe"... well... some people don't "believe" in climate change or say that recent cold weather refutes it, but that doesn't make their opinions valid, unless they go the "mystical" route of finding patterns in Creation, which is what I feel is what the study of the occult affords. But that doesn't mix with history.
Wow, I am just a mean, mean person, aren't I?
You seem to be agreeing with me rather than disputing me here. Yes, NOT believing in climate change for this or that reason does not make the opinion valid. This is political issue though, especially in the United States, where it is cast in the light of being a vast conspiracy against American and capitalist interests.
Ross G Caldwell
"No" has received 5 more votes today, while "Yes" and "Likely" have not advanced at all. So I am further heartened.
I don't believe most of the "No" votes come from cartomancers or people who have no idea what the question means, or more nefarious reasons.
I don't believe most of the "No" votes come from cartomancers or people who have no idea what the question means, or more nefarious reasons.
Huck
The question ...
"Do you believe Tarot was originally based on the Hebrew alphabet?"
... doesn't contain any information, from which "origin of Tarot" is talked about.
Versions of Tarot, which hadn't a "22" in its basic structure, likely are not suspected to have been in any way related to the Hebrew alphabet with 22 letters.
The existence of decks with 22 special cards can't be proven for the early time of the Trionfi card development (Trionfi cards are suspected to be the forerunners of Tarot cards). Card deck names similar to "Tarot" appear for the first time in 1505, which is 65 years after 1440, the date, from which we know the first use of the name "Trionfi cards".
So, if you talk of the origin of Tarot cards, you must either mean the state of 1505, or you must mean the origin of the Trionfi cards (c. 1440), if you think, that Tarot cards developed from Trionfi cards.
In the second case you need a prove, that the Trionfi cards had at a specific time 22 special cards. Otherwise you've nothing to talk about.
The first sure evidence for 22 special cards in a Trionfi deck appears with the Boiardo Tarocchi poem. 22 special cards are described with each having 3 lines of text. It has only text, and no trumps of this decks have survived (some pips and courts have survived).
Boiardo died 1494. He started to be a poet in 1461.
The most plausible date for the poem is "around January 1487".
The 22 objects in this poem are rather different from that, what everybody understands as Tarot cards.
Boiardo knew Hebrew language (which was very rare in this time) and he was elder cousin to Pico de Mirandola, who also knew Hebrew language, who is famous as the "first Christian Kabbalist" and as such one should likely understand somebody with great interest in the Hebrew Alphabet. Pico de Mirandola published his great kabbala work in December 1486, so very close to January 1487, the date, at which one might suspect the production of the Boiardo Tarocchi poem for other reasons.
That's the research situation.
************
The given question doesn't specify anything of the researched details. It's of no value, just some "global nonsense", I would say. A "Yes" or "No" says nothing.
A better question would be:
A1. Do you think, that Trionfi cards had 22 special cards in 1440?
A2. If yes to question A1, do you think, that these "hypothetical" 22 cards were identical to those, that you see in standard Tarot decks?
A3. If yes to question A2, do you think that these "hypothetical 22 of 1440" cards had a relation to letters of the Hebrew alphabet.
... or, if you prefer to request the Taroch cards of June 1505 ...
B1. Do you think, that the Tarot cards of June 1505 in Ferrara had a relation to Hebrew letters?
... or, if you prefer the Boiardo Tarocchi poem ...
C1. Do you think, that Count Matteo Mari Boiardo thought of Hebrew letters, when he constructed his Tarocchi poem?
*******
Here I would answer:
A1 ... something between "No" and "I don't know", but I'm closer to "No" than to "I don't know"
B1 ... I don't know
C1 ... Yes, it seems plausible, that Boiardo had some ideas about the Hebrew alphabet
"Do you believe Tarot was originally based on the Hebrew alphabet?"
... doesn't contain any information, from which "origin of Tarot" is talked about.
Versions of Tarot, which hadn't a "22" in its basic structure, likely are not suspected to have been in any way related to the Hebrew alphabet with 22 letters.
The existence of decks with 22 special cards can't be proven for the early time of the Trionfi card development (Trionfi cards are suspected to be the forerunners of Tarot cards). Card deck names similar to "Tarot" appear for the first time in 1505, which is 65 years after 1440, the date, from which we know the first use of the name "Trionfi cards".
So, if you talk of the origin of Tarot cards, you must either mean the state of 1505, or you must mean the origin of the Trionfi cards (c. 1440), if you think, that Tarot cards developed from Trionfi cards.
In the second case you need a prove, that the Trionfi cards had at a specific time 22 special cards. Otherwise you've nothing to talk about.
The first sure evidence for 22 special cards in a Trionfi deck appears with the Boiardo Tarocchi poem. 22 special cards are described with each having 3 lines of text. It has only text, and no trumps of this decks have survived (some pips and courts have survived).
Boiardo died 1494. He started to be a poet in 1461.
The most plausible date for the poem is "around January 1487".
The 22 objects in this poem are rather different from that, what everybody understands as Tarot cards.
Boiardo knew Hebrew language (which was very rare in this time) and he was elder cousin to Pico de Mirandola, who also knew Hebrew language, who is famous as the "first Christian Kabbalist" and as such one should likely understand somebody with great interest in the Hebrew Alphabet. Pico de Mirandola published his great kabbala work in December 1486, so very close to January 1487, the date, at which one might suspect the production of the Boiardo Tarocchi poem for other reasons.
That's the research situation.
************
The given question doesn't specify anything of the researched details. It's of no value, just some "global nonsense", I would say. A "Yes" or "No" says nothing.
A better question would be:
A1. Do you think, that Trionfi cards had 22 special cards in 1440?
A2. If yes to question A1, do you think, that these "hypothetical" 22 cards were identical to those, that you see in standard Tarot decks?
A3. If yes to question A2, do you think that these "hypothetical 22 of 1440" cards had a relation to letters of the Hebrew alphabet.
... or, if you prefer to request the Taroch cards of June 1505 ...
B1. Do you think, that the Tarot cards of June 1505 in Ferrara had a relation to Hebrew letters?
... or, if you prefer the Boiardo Tarocchi poem ...
C1. Do you think, that Count Matteo Mari Boiardo thought of Hebrew letters, when he constructed his Tarocchi poem?
*******
Here I would answer:
A1 ... something between "No" and "I don't know", but I'm closer to "No" than to "I don't know"
B1 ... I don't know
C1 ... Yes, it seems plausible, that Boiardo had some ideas about the Hebrew alphabet
Richard
The problem is that people who do not understand the reasons for their correct opinions are likely to overextend their opinions into areas in which they become invalid or at least highly questionable. What was once true for historical Tarot (before its reinterpretation by esotericists) is no longer necessarily true, especially for decks produced in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, most notably those in the Rider-Waite or Thoth traditions. (Etteilla seems sort of out of the mainstream of Tarot development, but there are efforts by Christine Payne-Towler and her followers to revive interest in it.) The fortune tellers who use Rider-Waite may (arguably) be justified in ignoring the intentions of its author, but some of them have a tendency to ridicule those who are indeed interested in the deck's history, and will attempt to justify their ignore-ance by asserting the half-truth that Tarot and Qabalah are unrelated. Probably this misconception is harmless, but nonetheless it can be annoying.
Annabelle
Me, too, precisely. I voted no, with certainty.
