I am not convinced by the provenance history of the VMS

[proto57]

Again, JustAnotherTheory, I have to agree with your points (below), as you reflect many of the elements of my Modern Forgery Theory... quite closely, in fact.

The idea of multiple expert disagreement is an important one... and while it is often claimed, as it was here, that almost all documents do have disagreement, only in the case of forgery does it rise to the level we see here... for age, origin, meaning, style, and on and on.

Also, those "... people who said 14th, 15th, 16th, even 17th century origin" were, and still should be, highly respected. Those who today say that this is certainly a 15th century manuscript are arguing with the likes of Charles Singer, Panofsky, Brumbaugh, Friedman, and more. And then, ironically, while dismissing the opinions of those greats, they need to elevate the Lehmann-Haupt, the cataloger, the one of two who "got it right" (according to believers in the 15th century origin theories). I wrote about this on this post, after being told it was I who did not "listen to the experts"... no, I am one of the few who actually DO listen to them: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

I think they were all correct. I think almost everything they saw in the Voynich is in the Voynich, in the jumbled mess that it actually is. Here is my expert chart, which others have seen, perhaps, but I don't think you have. Totally and razor sharp on target to your point here, and to the subject and content of this thread:

   

As for your pointing out that the wide range of expert opinion is a problem, it was and is one of my "Red Flags of Forgery", the subject of a talk I gave at the NSA Historical Cipher Symposium back in the 'teens. Here is the slide I compiled, listing the red flags I found when studying the nature of forgeries. The Voynich hits on more of these points... yes, to varying degrees... but hits on more of them, by far, than any other known forgery:

   

Actually, arguably, all but one of them...

Anyway, again your bring up good points, and I agree with you.... and have long agreed with you, even before you brought them up!

Rich

Are you asking me what the purpose of this particular forgery is (if indeed it is one)? The answer is: "I don't know". But that doesn't remove the possibility of the forgery being real.

How is it, that among all the medieval experts, before the carbon dating was revealed, nobody seemed to agree on the date of creation of the VMS? There were people who said 14th, 15th, 16th, even 17th century origin.

This much confusion among experts, in such a wide range, tells me that this is a possible sign of forgery. The forger was simply not good enough to make it unambiguously represent a single time period.