Re: Nabatean, was Re: VMs: Personal Guess

["Jeff" <jeff@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Rene Zandbergen r_zandbergen@xxxxxxxxx Wrote

>
> --- Jeff <jeff@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > Jeff Sheets sheetsj@xxxxxxx wrote
> > > Hey, I just found this while surfing.
> > > http://www.nabataea.net/voynich.html
> >
> > This can't be ruled out. The guy makes some very
> > interesting points ...
>
> Actually, I am not too convinced about many of his
> points, but I can easily believe that the VMs
> reflects a very old source text (or texts)
> which may not have been written in Latin or
> the Latin script. Most classical science as
> known in the late middle ages has come down to
> us through the Middle East.
>
> Cheers, Rene
>

While the character form comparison may appear to hang on flimsy threads
this does not rule out that an offshooot of nabataean script or of some
other middle eastern script was not used. When Alexandria was burnt a lot of
written text went with it along with the accumulated knowledge. Again in
Spain knowledge hung very tenuously through troubled times. In this respect
the preservation of knowledge would become a priority. In order to preserve
a text it may need to look unimportant and meaningless. A text that was
transferred to a culture that could not read it would be guaranteed
preservation but not assimilation until the right people could interpret it.
Many texts were merely copied and not fully translated through this time.
However, in this case, the right poeple never showed up.

One more for the general pot....

Jeff


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