24-12-2016, 06:30 AM
(This post was last modified: 24-12-2016, 07:00 AM by Diane.
Edit Reason: add
)
David Jackson -
Do please try to take your eyes of the phantom 'Diane' who may casually be ascribed all sorts of deviousness and evil intent.. the question is far more interesting, I think:
If the written part of the text is enciphered, then one assumes that it is enciphered because it is considered to have some 'uncommon' value and quality, even if only for the particular group who were intended to have access to the content. Wouldn't you say that stands to reason?
So the question to be asked, surely, before people reduce the range of their investigation to the best- and most widely known Latin European texts is... why would anyone bother enciphering a well-known text?
It would be as silly as enciphering the Lord's Prayer, or the Psalter or any other work being positively advocated and which was fairly well known to most literate people, including anyone who had the educational level needed to get a degree in theology?
OK - so Aristotle wasn't as well known as Aratus, but why encipher it?
I might also add that since 2011-2012, I have said that the construction-method used for the imagery in the botanical section accords with the way that Theophrastus classed and described plants - and that Theophrastus' works were habitually if wrongly ascribed to Aristotle by both the Arabic scholars and those of Latin Christian Europe.
So I'm not exactly opposed to the general idea of quasi-Aristotelian content. What I cannot agree with is that the text of Aristotle would be enciphered by any sane person of Latin Christian culture, within Europe.
There's another problem here, too.
To accurately encipher and decipher a piece of writing, you also need to presume some standardised orthography, a fairly consistent degree of literacy and some knowledge of formal grammar. Otherwise the message can't be reliably transmitted into and out of cipher.
So what group of educated persons would need to encipher an ordinary text recommended for the Latins' curriculum?
That's the issue. One of the many very obvious issues which would be noted and considered in any normal historical study... but in Voynich studies simply overlooked.
Resorting to theories that it "must" be about 'forbidden' knowledge, and then assuming that the Christian church 'forbade' whatever-it-is is not an argument ever investigated, researched or argued: it is always offered as an amateur knee-jerk reaction that is at heart informed less by study of any primary or secondary histories of the period than by personal imagination and residues of protestant 16thC propaganda.
In any case, we have the opposite judgements: of Adam McLean that the imagery is not related to 'high' alchemy and the negative judgement of Lynn Thorndike - strongly indicating that none of the manuscript's imagery or text suggests a connection to the myriad of Latin scientific, pseudo-scientific and magical manuscripts which were the subject of his own research.. and most of which were not enciphered at all.
So IF the written part of the text is enciphered.. are Aratus and Aristotle really very likely to have provided the plain text? Maybe... I've also spoken of Theophrastus' works on meteorology, on stones and so forth.
But then I don't see why any literate resident in Latin Europe would encode or encipher such an ordinary text. Except , perhaps, the Jews.
Do please try to take your eyes of the phantom 'Diane' who may casually be ascribed all sorts of deviousness and evil intent.. the question is far more interesting, I think:
If the written part of the text is enciphered, then one assumes that it is enciphered because it is considered to have some 'uncommon' value and quality, even if only for the particular group who were intended to have access to the content. Wouldn't you say that stands to reason?
So the question to be asked, surely, before people reduce the range of their investigation to the best- and most widely known Latin European texts is... why would anyone bother enciphering a well-known text?
It would be as silly as enciphering the Lord's Prayer, or the Psalter or any other work being positively advocated and which was fairly well known to most literate people, including anyone who had the educational level needed to get a degree in theology?
OK - so Aristotle wasn't as well known as Aratus, but why encipher it?
I might also add that since 2011-2012, I have said that the construction-method used for the imagery in the botanical section accords with the way that Theophrastus classed and described plants - and that Theophrastus' works were habitually if wrongly ascribed to Aristotle by both the Arabic scholars and those of Latin Christian Europe.
So I'm not exactly opposed to the general idea of quasi-Aristotelian content. What I cannot agree with is that the text of Aristotle would be enciphered by any sane person of Latin Christian culture, within Europe.
There's another problem here, too.
To accurately encipher and decipher a piece of writing, you also need to presume some standardised orthography, a fairly consistent degree of literacy and some knowledge of formal grammar. Otherwise the message can't be reliably transmitted into and out of cipher.
So what group of educated persons would need to encipher an ordinary text recommended for the Latins' curriculum?
That's the issue. One of the many very obvious issues which would be noted and considered in any normal historical study... but in Voynich studies simply overlooked.
Resorting to theories that it "must" be about 'forbidden' knowledge, and then assuming that the Christian church 'forbade' whatever-it-is is not an argument ever investigated, researched or argued: it is always offered as an amateur knee-jerk reaction that is at heart informed less by study of any primary or secondary histories of the period than by personal imagination and residues of protestant 16thC propaganda.
In any case, we have the opposite judgements: of Adam McLean that the imagery is not related to 'high' alchemy and the negative judgement of Lynn Thorndike - strongly indicating that none of the manuscript's imagery or text suggests a connection to the myriad of Latin scientific, pseudo-scientific and magical manuscripts which were the subject of his own research.. and most of which were not enciphered at all.
So IF the written part of the text is enciphered.. are Aratus and Aristotle really very likely to have provided the plain text? Maybe... I've also spoken of Theophrastus' works on meteorology, on stones and so forth.
But then I don't see why any literate resident in Latin Europe would encode or encipher such an ordinary text. Except , perhaps, the Jews.