04-11-2018, 04:54 AM
Dear Michael (if I may)
I apologise if any of the following points have been made; they didn't appear in the several pages of comments which I read before the tone turned very technical and bit over-sharp.
My first point is that every writer needs constantly to do a 'reality check' and demonstrate that they are doing this. In the case of Beinecke MS 408, the past century shows how easily enthusiastic theories about the written part of the text very easily become elevated above the solid rock of historical fact and knowledge to date.
Quite apart from developing your translation, and explaining your impression of the alleged encryption's method, you need to demonstrate that such a method for encryption is known from historical records dated earlier than 1440: because the manuscript's manufacture (to the best of our knowledge) occurred by 1438. This date has not suited a number of hypothetical 'histories' so even on that you may discover efforts to replace an attestable item with a theory-derived item.
Secondly, you need to have - or work to develop - some knowledge of codicology and of art. This is because there is no use proving that your proposed enciphering method is attested for, say, 17thC Africa if everything else about the primary evidence denies such a date and provenance.
I have been criticised, myself, for suggesting that the professional opinion of someone with specifically relevant background (years of focused practical study and experience) should weigh more heavily than the after-dinner musings of someone less interested in the object than in his (or her) musings. However, the aim of such preference is not to have any ''idea' seem more impressive, but to have the manuscript correctly provenanced and understood.
So what you need to do is to demonstrate that in the real, physical world of not later than 1438 we have some tangible proof that someone literate in Latin produced (a) a text created around your posited system AND (b) produced imagery in comparable style and 'hand' to the Voynich manuscript's AND © that they did so in an area where contemporary manuscripts were being produced which employed vellum or even parchment quires of the same raw dimensions as the Vms' standard quires and formed them into a finished book using similar stitching style and thread. (In manuscript studies, whether the thread has an 'S'- or 'Z-' twist is a marker of provenance.
As has been so often the case, Michael, I think you have fallen into the error of imagining that the Vms is not yet read because it's written text has not been 'deciphered'. In fact, the very idea of its being in cipher is little more than an idea, and one more than a little out-of-keeping with our present understanding of early fourteenth century cipher methods in Latin Europe.
You want qualified scientists to promote your personal theory; IMO we need qualified persons from across the range of manuscript sciences and related areas of specialisation... to stop anachronistic nonsense being promoted as if it were 'history' or 'art history' or 'cipher decryption'.
A case of live and learn, isn't it?
I apologise if any of the following points have been made; they didn't appear in the several pages of comments which I read before the tone turned very technical and bit over-sharp.
My first point is that every writer needs constantly to do a 'reality check' and demonstrate that they are doing this. In the case of Beinecke MS 408, the past century shows how easily enthusiastic theories about the written part of the text very easily become elevated above the solid rock of historical fact and knowledge to date.
Quite apart from developing your translation, and explaining your impression of the alleged encryption's method, you need to demonstrate that such a method for encryption is known from historical records dated earlier than 1440: because the manuscript's manufacture (to the best of our knowledge) occurred by 1438. This date has not suited a number of hypothetical 'histories' so even on that you may discover efforts to replace an attestable item with a theory-derived item.
Secondly, you need to have - or work to develop - some knowledge of codicology and of art. This is because there is no use proving that your proposed enciphering method is attested for, say, 17thC Africa if everything else about the primary evidence denies such a date and provenance.
I have been criticised, myself, for suggesting that the professional opinion of someone with specifically relevant background (years of focused practical study and experience) should weigh more heavily than the after-dinner musings of someone less interested in the object than in his (or her) musings. However, the aim of such preference is not to have any ''idea' seem more impressive, but to have the manuscript correctly provenanced and understood.
So what you need to do is to demonstrate that in the real, physical world of not later than 1438 we have some tangible proof that someone literate in Latin produced (a) a text created around your posited system AND (b) produced imagery in comparable style and 'hand' to the Voynich manuscript's AND © that they did so in an area where contemporary manuscripts were being produced which employed vellum or even parchment quires of the same raw dimensions as the Vms' standard quires and formed them into a finished book using similar stitching style and thread. (In manuscript studies, whether the thread has an 'S'- or 'Z-' twist is a marker of provenance.
As has been so often the case, Michael, I think you have fallen into the error of imagining that the Vms is not yet read because it's written text has not been 'deciphered'. In fact, the very idea of its being in cipher is little more than an idea, and one more than a little out-of-keeping with our present understanding of early fourteenth century cipher methods in Latin Europe.
You want qualified scientists to promote your personal theory; IMO we need qualified persons from across the range of manuscript sciences and related areas of specialisation... to stop anachronistic nonsense being promoted as if it were 'history' or 'art history' or 'cipher decryption'.
A case of live and learn, isn't it?