The Mosaic Page

Did you hear about those weird secret symbols embedded into the layout of the 19th-century Bomberg Talmud? Or similar layouts, symbols and coded messages found throughout a medieval Christian book called the Glossa Ordinaria? Oh come now, everyone has read Dan Brown. Those monks and rabbis were up to something. There must be a conspiracy “they” don’t want us to know about. Well, no, not really. It was just the medium used to convey the messages of those times, similar to the typical layout of almost all newspapers of today. But why were they so similar? And how does the medium of print and the form of their layouts convey (or amplify) their message? On this week’s Mosaic Ark, the ladies continued to discuss Marshall McLuhan’s The Mechanical Bride, and wondered how the medium of newsprint is affecting society, and whether the m ...