The Modern Forgery Hypothesis

[Mark Knowles]

- Mark Knowles: It's about separating the date of the parchment / vellum from the date of the contents written onto it. We know the physical material the contents are written on, is genuine from the early 15th century. But that does not automatically apply to the contents written onto it.

However, there is always room for doubt. How do we know that the physical material the contents are written on, is genuine from the early 15th century? Maybe, the carbon dating test was performed incorrectly or maybe the samples were contaminated or maybe we were all lied to about its dating, so as to conceal the fact that Voynich faked it. For the doubters there is always scope for doubt. I, myself, have never seen the Voynich, so I could doubt its even existence. However, in the real world the question should not be one of possibility, but rather probability. Whilst there is a possibility the manuscript is a fake, the probability that it is, is very small.