[Movie] Is the Voynich Manuscript an Elaborate Medieval Hoax?

[Hermes777]

Justin makes well researched videos. He's especially hot on Qabbalah and Jewish esoterica. A good series. He's perfected his trademark dry humour. 

I also think his conclusions about the Voynich MS. are a bit hasty. The hoax hypothesis always strikes me as an argument of last resort, and that is how Dr Sledge arrives at it - it's the hypothesis to which you turn when all else fails. The failure is to provide an adequate account of the text. But this necessitates also claiming that the illustrations are part of the hoax, and that seems to me a much more difficult position to argue. Torsten is forced to argue:

"it makes sense to illustrate a manuscript nobody can read. The illustrations would attract attention and
everyone would assume that the text might be explaining the secret he or she could see within the strange illustrations. Or, in other words, if the text cannot be read or decoded then a background story or some fanciful illustrations are needed to make a manuscript interesting."

I find this entirely unconvincing and to dismiss the illustrations and diagrams in the work as merely "fanciful" is to sell them short. I'm alert to all the problems with the text, but I don't find the illustrations nearly so opaque. They speak of a meaningful, purposeful and cogent work. If the text is gibberish, the illustrations are not, and I find it very unlikely they are just eye-candy to make the text more enticing to a prospective buyer. 

It was disappointing that the video concentrated on the text, and rehearsed the usual points, only characterising the illustrations as poorly done and inconsequential. 'Solutions' ought to be comprehensive and explain the entire work, text and pictures both. Instead, here we see obsessive study of the text and the pictures are dismissed too readily as crude and amateurish. Justin is a bit bookish. In other videos he is very textual  too and overlooks art and illustrations, rather than seeing works as an ensemble of text and visual content.  

The story that Rudolf paid a large sum for it (150+ years later!) provides no evidence as to the original purpose of the work whatsoever and cannot be taken as proof the "hoax" was profitable and well-calculated.