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But there’s another mysterious book that many believe contains other cataclysmic predictions. Its dark secrets are yet to be revealed. Historians, linguists and code-breakers are attempting to decipher its meaning – what will they reveal? Experts worldwide are fascinated by this: Item MS408 in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University, its current home. Weird or What? s1e3: Cocaine Mummies, Discovery 2010
The mystery centres around a manuscript in Rome called the Nostradamus Vatinicia Code. The prophecies of Nostradamus. Since the title bears the renowned prophet’s name, many believe he must be the author. But no record exists of Nostradamus ever publishing such a manuscript. And so the identity of the writer remains an open question. Nostradamus Effect s1e6: Son of Nostradamus, History 2009
No original manuscripts of the Four Gospels have been found. Mysteries of the Bible s3e7: Who Wrote the Bible? A&E 1996
There are some thirty manuscripts ... that mention Jesus travelling through those [Eastern] regions. Beyond Belief: Jesus in India
The Roman Church burnt and destroyed hundreds of other manuscripts. ibid.
A cargo of manuscripts – the greatest literary treasures of the French royal family were now on their way to the English court. Dr Janina Ramirez, Illuminations: The Private Lives of Medieval Kings 2/3, BBC 2012
This manuscript is sending out a clear message: England is once again a force to be reckoned with, and its kings want to be players on the world stage. Dr Janina Ramirez, Illuminations: The Private Lives of Medieval Kings 3/3
In 1476 William Caxton began printing in England. ibid.
A library has become something to aspire to. ibid.
You realise just how labour intensive the production of manuscripts was. ibid.
The Reformation caused the destruction not just of monasteries across the country but also many of their illuminated manuscripts. ibid.
This is the story of a book hidden for centuries in the shadows of history. An unknown jewel of the English canon, and the first book ever written by a woman – Julian of Norwich: Revelations of Divine Love, written in 1373, dared to present an alternative vision of man’s relationship with God. A theology fundamentally at odds with the church of her time. Hidden away for 500 years the book re-emerged as an iconic text for the women’s movement, and is now acknowledged as a classic. Janina Ramirez, The Search for the Lost Manuscript, BBC 2017
Into this cosmopolitan city [Norwich] Julian was born in 1342. ibid.
Religious and secular life were totally intertwined. ibid.
As a mystic Julian now had a direct relationship with God unmediated by the Church. She made a drastic decision: she became an anchoress. ibid.
It has been described as the most mysterious document in the world. 240 pages of strange writing and bizarre illustrations. It has baffled and intrigued the world’s best code-breakers. Ancient X Files s2e4: Sodom & Gomorrah & Voynich Manuscript, National Geographic 2012
The book was discovered in a Jesuit college in 1912 by a Polish book dealer called Wilfrid Voynich but it was written many centuries before. ibid.
Designs in the manuscript seem to echo actual Renaissance glass-work. ibid.
Many of the world’s leading cryptographers have attempted to crack this bizarre fifteenth-century cipher. ibid.
During the fifteenth century Milan was a powerful city-state often at war with its neighbour Venice. The city was ruled by the powerful Sforza dynasty. The same Sforzas who ... used a coding system similar to the one found in the Voynich. ibid.
This is a book that defies understanding. For centuries every attempt to reveal its meaning has drawn a blank. Unexplained Files
He [ancestor] found the manuscript that came to bear his name in the Jesuit library on the outskirts of Rome. ibid.
The Kolbrin Bible is a 3,600-year-old secular anthology. The first part of it was written about the time of the Old Testament. Marshall Mathers
The Kolbrin Bible is said to have been discovered in England in the twelfth-century. But since no original manuscript seems to exist many doubt its authenticity. Adam Curtis, Pandora’s Box, BBC 1992
It’s the largest and possibly most mysterious manuscript ever found. A Bible. An encyclopaedia of history. Magic and medicine all rolled into one. The Devil’s Bible, National Geographic 2011
Satan: the Codex boasts a full-page portrait of the devil. No other Bible on Earth features such a sizeable image of evil incarnate. ibid.
The book appears flawless, and scholars observe no notable mistakes or omissions. ibid.
The monk promises the impossible. He will inscribe a massive tome. The greatest book of his age. It will contain the Bible and all human knowledge. It will glorify his monastery for ever. And to prove his penance he will write this colossal creation in one night. ibid.
The Codex Gigas is the work of a single scribe ... It was the work of just one person. But not in one night. This took decades of devotion and dedication. ibid.
It [Devil's Bible] contains a combination of texts that exists nowhere else. It is a most peculiar, strange, haunting, fascinating, large, bizarre, inexplicable object. Christopher de Hamel, librarian Corpus Christi Cambridge
The buyer a billionaire who wouldn’t reveal his identity. But instead of hiding it away he put the precious manuscript into the hands of those who could unlock its secrets. But interpreting Archimedes’ manuscript proved to be more difficult than anyone imagined. Horizon: Archimedes’ Secret, BBC 2002
Dead in the underground vaults of the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem lie the remains of one of the oldest Biblical manuscripts in existence: the Dead Sea Scrolls. Hidden in desert caves for more than two thousand years, many of these scrolls are now buried in the vaults of the museum. For almost half a century they’ve been seen only by a handful of privileged scholars. Ancient Mysteries: Enigma of the Dead Sea Scrolls, A&E 1994
Publication delay and requests for access denied. ibid.
Judea, winter 1947: three desert herdsmen made their way along the shores of the Dead Sea. ibid.
Hundreds of manuscripts and tens of thousands of fragments were dug out of more than a dozen caves in and around Qumran. ibid.
Eight scholars: the international team. ibid.
The Temple Scroll was the eighth to come into Israeli hands. ibid.
A forbidden Christian message is found encoded inside a manuscript almost fifteen hundred years old ... A lost gospel – do these new readings finally prove the controversial claim that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married? And even more remarkably, do they suggest an alternative version of Christianity, perhaps started by Mary Magdalene herself? Biblical Conspiracies: Bride of God, Discovery 2015
A mysterious medieval book written in a secret language so complex that even the world’s best codebreakers can’t crack it. Known as the Voynich Manuscript, it’s obsessed everyone from scholars to conspiracy theorists. History’s Greatest Mysteries s3e9: Voynich Manuscript