Hebrew Alphabet & Tarot

Do you believe Tarot was originally based on the Hebrew alphabet?

  • Yes

    Votes: 5 5.7%
  • No

    Votes: 68 77.3%
  • It seems likely, even if unproven

    Votes: 4 4.5%
  • I don't know

    Votes: 11 12.5%

  • Total voters
    88

Zephyros

I am tempted to create my own pseudo-GD deck, but with the pictures showing the actual meanings of the letters and see where it takes me. I have no artistic talent but it seems a good exercise at least to plan it.
 

Ross G Caldwell

I am tempted to create my own pseudo-GD deck, but with the pictures showing the actual meanings of the letters and see where it takes me. I have no artistic talent but it seems a good exercise at least to plan it.

If you did, people could see immediately that there was no relationship, conceptually.

It would, or could, teach the history of the Hebrew alphabet - and not only the Hebrew, since ours comes from the same source. I thought I saw something like this before, but a quick look on Google images doesn't show it.

I'm sure I also saw GD or other occult-inspired decks that try to make the pictures reflect something about the Hebrew alphabet very directly, but it is probably only on some of the cards, like making Death look like a Mem or the letter Shin superimposed on three people rising from the grave.
 

gregory

Not sure about that. closrapexa's knowledge of this area would make this seriously interesting, actually.

Not in terms of Where It All Came From, but in terms of What It Can Add.

Go for it, clos (too tired to type your name again :D)
 

conversus

However, after the fall of the Second Temple, Hebrew practically died out for all practical purposes, surviving mainly in the Masoretic texts and other religious literature. It was as dead a language as Latin.

I think that i get the sense of your thought here, but i feel obligated to point out that at the time of the fall of the Second Temple Latin was most definitely not a dead language. Latin managed to be quite robust for well over 1500 years after that particular catastrophe.
 

Zephyros

I think that i get the sense of your thought here, but i feel obligated to point out that at the time of the fall of the Second Temple Latin was most definitely not a dead language. Latin managed to be quite robust for well over 1500 years after that particular catastrophe.

I was not implying that it was, only that Hebrew was as dead then as Latin is now. Today, on the other hand, Latin is dead, while Hebrew is not.
 

Ross G Caldwell

It's important to remember that "dead" for linguists means "no one's maternal language", it does not mean "no one uses it".

Latin has been dead in this sense since the 5th century, or 1500 years, coincident with the collapse of the Roman imperial system of government (the "fall of Rome") in western Europe. In the eastern Empire, Byzantium, they continued to speak Greek.
 

conversus

Latin is spoken every day in the Holy See. There is a growing interest among the younger generations in the Latin Liturgy (however lamentable or praiseworthy that may be).
 

Ross G Caldwell

Latin is spoken every day in the Holy See. There is a growing interest among the younger generations in the Latin Liturgy (however lamentable or praiseworthy that may be).

So the citizens of the Holy See are taught Latin by their mothers, who presumably speak it themselves at home?

Please read my original comment, in full.
 

Zephyros

Latin is spoken every day in the Holy See. There is a growing interest among the younger generations in the Latin Liturgy (however lamentable or praiseworthy that may be).

I fail to see the relevance. Hebrew, too, was never completely dead either, but will we begin to cite exceptions to every generalization?
What would be the point? Maybe my simile was wrong and I should have said dead as a dodo, which was not, at that time, extinct.
 

conversus

I believe taht we were typing at the same time, before your edit. And i was not in dispute with you.