copy of an older, barely legible manuscript?

[ReneZ]

I made a mistake there. I only mentioned the code to explain how I came across it, not to say, “Hey, I have a code.”

The point is that, if your idea arose from an invalid translation, then the idea has no basis.

Certainly, it is possible that the text we have is a copy of a draft, or another original.
Certainly, it is also possible that errors were made during this copying. 
(Both things are known to have happened in other manuscripts.)

However, the evidence for it, or the places where it may have happened is not valid (if the translation is invalid).

For me, it is not even certain that the 'words' in the MS represent words.