Thursday, February 15, 2018

The Voynich Manuscript has not been deciphered

PHILOLOGOS: No, the Mysterious Voynich Manuscript Is Not Written in Hebrew Despite the silly claims of two computer scientists (Mosaic Magazine).
At this point, it must be said, Hauer and Kondrak’s paper descends into silliness. Quite apart from the unlikelihood of even the most esoteric of manuscripts beginning in such a manner, one can only compliment Google Translate on its ingenuity. She made recommendations to the priest, man of the house, and me and people? Even after “spelling corrections,” the Hebrew words in question mean no such thing. In fact, they mean nothing at all. Translating them without Google’s finessing, one comes up with something like “And he made her the priest each man to himself to his house and on me his people the commandments.” If this was the winning entry in the trial-decipherment round of competition, one can only imagine its rivals.
This is spot on, as is the rest of Philologos's analysis. I came to the same conclusion a couple of weeks ago, after reading (well, skimming) Hauer and Kondrak’s academic paper. It didn't take any more than skimming, because the supposedly deciphered (by an AI!), so-called Hebrew is simply not credible.

Background here.

Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.