from a biblical perspective
Hi,
I am not just a Bible reader, but an archeology of the Bible buff. There are a few key points to remember.
l. Before the invention of the printing press in mid 1400, everything was copied by hand either on vellum (which is animal skin) or papyrus. People copying the texts, such as the Bible, made thousands of mistakes. Over 90% of the errors in the Bible are accidental mistakes. However, a few are intentional and those intentional mistakes are very revealing and important. Papyrus degrades quickly and if ancient texts were not constantly recopied they were lost. The great philosophical heritage of Greece was copied in Byzantium for 1,000 years, otherwise we would have no Plato, Parmenides, Aristotle, etc. Ditto for the Bible
2. There are roughly four different Bibles. I say roughly because obviously there are hundreds of different versions of these four Bibles. These four are:
-the Septuagint which is the Hebrew scriptures written in Greek in around 300 B.C in Alexandria, Egypt--supposedly by 72 learned scholars. This was the first written scripture outside of the Temple texts, which were in separate scrolls (or so one would suppose although there is no evidence.)
-The Hebrew Bible that was composed along the lines of the Septuagint after 70 A.D. and the burning down of the Second Temple, minus about five books.
-The Latin Vulgate Bible supposedly a translation of the Hebrew Bible and the Greek Septuagint, plus the Greek New Testament, into Latin by St. Jerome in the 300s A.D. Contains all the books of the Septuagint
--And finally the Protestant Bible based on the Hebrew Bible and the Greek New Testament.
Key for the Tarot is that the Hebrew and the Protestant Bible do not contain the Wisdom literature that possibly influenced the Tarot, such as the Book of Wisdom (written some time in the 3rd Century B.C. in Greek speaking Alexandria).
--- Aside from all this Bible information there is the question if the Tarot contains a "hidden tradition," and I would say, "yes;" but that is just my opinion. The Tarot contains a Pythagorean riddle, which could go all the way back to Archimedes. (It's all in the numbers.)
Also, the Tree of Life that Eliphas Levi used was not from a Hebrew Kabbalah but from the Assyrian Bible that was translated into Latin in the 1600s and was quite the rage with folks like Kircher who put the Hebrew alphabet on the Peshitta Tree. I recommend Margaret Barker who works on the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Simo Parpolo (for a fascinating look at the religion of Istar). Perhaps one day this will take the riddle of Tarot back into a more ancient landscape.
