I have no intention of turning my steemit into a news blog, but this is something I've been following for a long time. And, well, I just couldn't resist!
If you're not familiar with the Voynich Manuscript, it's a mysterious medieval codex that has been carbon dated to the early fifteenth century. It's named after Wilfrid Voynich, a book dealer who purchased it in the 1900's and made its existence widely known, though it can be traced back to the early seventeenth century with reasonable certainty.
But here's the exciting part: It's encrypted, and until now the cipher has proven unbreakable, despite many highly accomplished cryptography experts and, recently, computers who have all taken a crack at it with no success. This led many to conclude that it was just gibberish-a hoax-being of the opinion that a medieval cryptographer could never outfox modern computers. But they were apparently wrong!
As it turns out, the manuscript is in Hebrew, which shouldn't come as any surprise. You have probably heard of the Bible code, but what you may not know is that Jewish scholars have been searching for codes in the Torah as long as anyone can remember. As a result, Jewish scholars made natural cryptographers.
The existence of an apparently real cipher, as well as the carbon dating and history of ownership, make it unlikely that the book is a hoax. Why would someone go to that much trouble to create a real, high quality cipher if they were just looking to make a quick buck? Not to mention the fact that the book absolutely dates back to a time when a forger couldn't have anticipated scientific advances like carbon dating. The vellum and ink has been analyzed on many levels, and if it's a forgery then it's author had to have been psychic-or a time traveler...
The codex is equally bizarre in its illustrations, which show many nonexistent plants and strange creatures, as well as astrological charts. Some think it's a medieval herbal, while others think it deals with alchemy. The bizarre nature of the illustrations have convinced many that it's a hoax, written with the intent of convincing a medieval buyer that the book contains secret knowledge of exotic plants and healing arts from a far away land. Again, though, why would the hoaxer go to the trouble of creating a real cipher.
Unfortunately, they still don't know what it actually says. But the computer indicates it's written in Hebrew, with a very high degree of certainty. They have also been able to identify many coherent Hebrew words, and the opening sentence may say something along the lines of, “She made recommendations to the priest, man of the house and me and people.”
Currently, a team of Hebrew experts is applying the algorithm to the rest of the text. Hopefully that will crack the case, and we'll finally know what the darned thing is all about. Now if they could just figure out what's buried on Oak Island...