The Modern Forgery Hypothesis

[proto57]

What would prove the manuscript to be genuine?

In my personal opinion (and of course others might have different ideas about this), to know the Voynich Manuscript is genuine and 15th century:

1) An undeniable reference to the Voynich, which existed sometime long before 1912. This would be a catalog listing, or description in a letter, and so on, which cannot be mistaken for anything but the Voynich. I feel it would have to include the most "dramatic" and identifying features of the Voynich, pretty much how we describe it today: Nude women in baths, zodiac, name of Tepencz on the first page, copied characters like the gallows, and so on. We would know it when we saw it, I think.

2) One or more of the missing pages of the Voynich, which is found in a place which was provably out of reach for Voynich in his lifetime. Perhaps in the binding of some book, for instance. Many ancient books used scraps from other, discarded books. If a page or part of a page testable as being from the Voynich was found in such a "time capsule", I would be satisfied the Voynich is genuine and old... as old as the source it was found in, at least (an ancient strip of a vellum Latin document fell out of the binding of my 1647 Erasamus Bible, as it is in bad shape):

   

3) Another work which is obviously of the same content of the Voynich, which would show that it is not unique, and part of a genuine... discipline? Group? Of course this would have to be "old enough". This would be weaker proof, but I think such a work, sufficiently similar to the Voynich, would show it could be from a real discipline, with "sister works".

4) A successful translation which clearly reflects the reason for its creation, the content, etc., in such a way that shows it is convincingly genuine. I can't predict what that might be comprised of, but I think it possible that there could be some plain text which would be sufficiently convincing.

I think there are a couple of other things that would work, maybe, but at the moment I forget what they might be. What do you think would prove it old, and real?

Rich