Kiama
Just thought I'd add a bit from the glorious book of Revelations from the Bible, which does speak of many images we now find in the Tarot... And I just read in Mari-Hoshizaki's thread on Tarot as Stage Scenes that Waite was a Christian mystic, so it makes sense that he used concepts from the Bible...
"A great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth." - Revelations 12: 1-2
It is quite often that there are references to the book of Revelations in the RWS deck... The World card, the Strength card (Babylon and the Beast, shown more 'accurately' in the Thoth deck).
In the book of Revelations, the woman 'clothed with the sun'etc gives birth to a male child, who is taken up to the throne of God by God himself. Was this supposed to be Jesus Christ? It doesn't say for certain whether or not it is Jesus in the book of Revelations, but I'm assuming it is.
Kiama
"A great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth." - Revelations 12: 1-2
It is quite often that there are references to the book of Revelations in the RWS deck... The World card, the Strength card (Babylon and the Beast, shown more 'accurately' in the Thoth deck).
In the book of Revelations, the woman 'clothed with the sun'etc gives birth to a male child, who is taken up to the throne of God by God himself. Was this supposed to be Jesus Christ? It doesn't say for certain whether or not it is Jesus in the book of Revelations, but I'm assuming it is.
Kiama