The Voynich Ninja

[quote="Davidsch" pid='3459' dateline='1461157152']
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If you look at the charts before the famous You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.atlas, 
the form is quite the same as the worldmaps that were common around 1300-1440. 

Also you see there in my project in the added Dulcert map images, that the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. are just a way of "iconize" regions or cities.

But all that is old news.
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I was just browsing but came across this, and agree with the iconization. But i did not think of it as old news, even if this post is three years old, i am just happy to see others seeing it as such. 

That Dulcert example is great, i can almost see people in some of the various poses. It is like it could be an in joke between geographers of the time.  There are other similar maps which have rounded looking cities, or those which could be perceived as such, or even as people in tubs, if you squint your eyes, including the Cresques Abraham version. This also shows what i think of as pangolin scale mountains.



As to the topic at hand, i think it is a morphing world map, that includes references to combined religions, creation, connection, so i can see how the tree of life and knowledge and the wisdom of truth could be involved, and it is interesting that the Kabbalah was taken up by Christians and others as well. I certainly see the earth wind fire water aspect being involved, although maybe not in this format. 

(22-02-2016, 03:10 AM)Oocephalus Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I just found this new paper by J. Janick, T. Ryba and A. Tucker (some of you might remember Tucker's earlier paper identifying many VMS plants as Mesoamerican species):
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They came essentially to the same conclusions that I did: The diagram can be read as a Sephirotic Tree of Life with the lower left corner at the top, the T-O map represents Malkhut and the Nine Rosettes are the other Sephirot. They also made an interesting observation on the three-circles symbol:

Quote:Since the Hebrew alphabet may be written with ball-and-stick elements this symbol may be interpreted to represents the letter resh (ר) which can mean “principal, original, beginning.” 

I don't know whether this is accurate, but in the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., a magical alphabet based on Hebrew, the letter resh indeed looks like that.

Does anyone know where Janick et al found that the Hebrew letter resh means beginning? Their lack of references here makes it hard to check. All I find for meanings of resh is various negative connotations.

I have also not yet found any pre-1450 source illuminating the use of "stick-and-ball" figures as Hebrew letters.

(17-02-2022, 06:22 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Does anyone know where Janick et al found that the Hebrew letter resh means beginning? Their lack of references here makes it hard to check. All I find for meanings of resh is various negative connotations.

Don't know but there is no clear source for this meaning, I wonder if it could have originated in something slightly different like You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(17-02-2022, 11:41 PM)tavie Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Don't know but there is no clear source for this meaning, I wonder if it could have originated in something slightly different like You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Yeah probably something like this or another source of the highest academic standards

Addendum to the Tree of Life:

Sephiroth (Heb. sg. סְפִירָה səfīrā Sefira, pl. סְפִירוֹת səfīrōt) is the Hebrew name of the ten divine emanations in the Kabbalistic Tree of Life (Hebrew Ez Chajim). According to the Kabbalah conceived by Isaac Luria (Lurianic Kabbalah), these emanations in their totality symbolically embody the heavenly man, the Adam Qadmon.
The reverse side (sitra achra) of the tree of life is formed by the tree of death with the Qlīpōt.

So the tree of life shown You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. by Linda is not quite correct. At the top, instead of "Malkuth," it should read "Kether." Kether (Hebrew כתר keter "crown") represents the highest Sephira (singular of Sephiroth) in the Tree of Life of the Jewish Kabbalah. Kabbalists consider kether to be the goal of the spiritual quest.

Tree of Life ( Sephiroth ):
[attachment=6225]

When I read this older thread for the first time, I was surprised by this post by Marco. This seems like important information to keep in mind for anyone who considers comparing the rosettes foldout to Sefirot diagrams. The earliest attestation is 100 years after the VM!

(22-02-2016, 10:49 AM)MarcoP Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.As the Tree of Life wikipedia page says, "Its diagrammatic representation, arranged in 3 columns/pillars, derives from Christian and esoteric sources and is not known to the earlier Jewish tradition."



You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. says that the earliest illustration appeared in a 1516 printed book (Portae Lucis by Paul Riccius).

I don't know of any XV Century illustration of the diagram.

(19-02-2022, 01:38 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The earliest attestation is 100 years after the VM!

The Kabbalah is older than the beginning of the 16th century. Interestingly, the oldest depiction of the diagram I could find is actually from 1516.

Quote:Source: Wikipedia

Classical Kabbalah spread "from northern Spain around the end of 1300, primarily through the works of Joseph ben Abraham Josef Gikatilla and through the writings (some of them anonymous and pseudepigraphic) of Mose ben Samuel de Leon."

BSM, G'iḳaṭilyah, Yosef Avraham: Portae Lvcis ( Šaʿarê ôrā ), 4 Exeg. 690, 1516, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
[attachment=6228]
Translated by Paulus Ricius. Ricius converted from Judaism to Christianity in 1505.



Josef Gikatilla (1248 - 1325) became a disciple of Abraham Abulafia only after the writing of the Portae Lucis ( Šaʿarê ôrā ) and systematized the teaching of the Sephiroth ( see History of the Christian Kabbalah, Part 1, by Wilhelm Schmidt-Biggemann ):
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Šaʿarê ôrā ( Sha' are Orah ), English translation:
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Finally, it should be noted that scholars have traced the origin of the art on the Porta Lucis cover to Johann Reuchlin ( 1455 - 1522 ).

Quote:Source: Philosophia symbolica: Johann Reuchlin and the Kabbalah, Amsterdam 2005


30b Joseph ben Abraham Gikatilla, Portae lucis, transl. Paulus Ricius. Augsburg, Johann Miller, 1516

Reuchlin was sent Paulus Ricius' partial Latin translation of Sha'arei Orah by the latter's son, Hieronymus, after Hieronymus had been given a letter to read which Reuchlin had sent to his friend Konrad Peutinger. In this letter, Reuchlin expressed great admiration for Paulus Ricius Portae lucis was reprinted in Pistorius' Christian kabbalistic compilation of 1587 (see no. 17). The Inventory of Reuchlin's Hebrew works (see IVa) lists Porta lucis under no. 35; it is not certain whether this edition is meant or a Hebrew manuscript, which Reuchlin also owned.

This is the first representation of the sefirotic tree in print. From the 13th century onwards, Kabbalists produced pictorial representations of the structure of creation, generally called ilanot (trees) . Part of the terminology of the sefirot was determined by 1 Chronicles 29: 11: 'Thine, Lord, is the greatness (gedulah), the power (gevurah) and the glory (tiferet), and the victory (netsach) and the majesty (had) ... thine is the kingdom (malkuth)', which in the image in Portae lucis (from right to left) are, respectively, the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth and tenth sefirah.

From the 13th century onwards, Kabbalists produced pictorial representations of the structure of creation, generally called ilanot (trees).

The Ilanot Portal
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Here is an example:
Brescia - Biblioteca Queriniana - MS L FI 11

The Brescia parchment was likely written by a Spanish scribe around the late fourteenth century. The text has been attributed to Rabbi Joseph Gikatilla (1248–ca. 1305).

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[attachment=6231]


A Very Brief History of the Ilan Genre – Prof. J. H. Chajes
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That is very interesting. It is even more focused around the center than the later trees.

Among others Brescia - Biblioteca Queriniana - MS L FI 11
This website now has an interactive function that describes parts of the tree ( it was previously under development ).

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Note: The list of zodiac signs in the diagram in the center ( Tiferet ) is almost in the known order.
Aries
Gemini
Taurus
Cancer
Leo
Virgo
Libra
Scorpio
Sagittarius
Capricorn
Aquarius
Pisces