I can remember well one of my first conversations with a Muslim. One of the first things he did was to accuse the Church of suppressing the Gospel of Barnabas. He said that if I read this Gospel I would see that Jesus foretold the coming of Muhammad. (Maybe you have heard or said something like this yourself?) I had never heard of the Gospel of Barnabas so I sat there silently. However I wanted to know whether or not the Gospel of Barnabas was true so a bought a copy from a Muslim bookshop and began to study it. The following article is a summary of my results. I hope that you find it helpful.

Contents

1. The Gospel of Barnabas and the Epistle of Barnabas
2. The Gospel of Barnabas and the 1st Century A.D.
3. The Gospel of Barnabas and Islam
4. The Gospel of Barnabas and the 14th Century A.D.
5. When was the Gospel of Barnabas Written?
6. The Muslim Evidence for the Antiquity of the Gospel of Barnabas
7. Why was the Gospel of Barnabas Written?
8. Who wrote the Gospel of Barnabas?
9. Conclusion

1. The Gospel of Barnabas and the Epistle of Barnabas

There are two books which carry the name, Barnabas. There is the Gospel of Barnabas and the Epistle of Barnabas. These are two very different books. The Gospel of Barnabas is the book promoted by Muslims today, while the Epistle of Barnabas is an ancient Christian book which teaches about the lordship, death and resurrection of Jesus. The Epistle of Barnabas is freely available and thoroughly Christian. The distinction between these two books needs to be understood because sometimes people confuse them; they think that a reference to the Epistle of Barnabas is a reference to the Gospel of Barnabas, but it is not. They are two completely different books.

2. The Gospel of Barnabas and the 1st Century A.D.

The Gospel of Barnabas is promoted by Muslims as an original Gospel written by the man named Barnabas[1] who it is claimed was a disciple of Jesus (p. 2). Thus they claim it was written by a Jewish man in the 1st century A.D. who travelled with Jesus. If Barnabas really is the author then it is reasonable to expect that he would be familiar with the basic facts of Jewish life at this time. We will now consider this book to see if he does.

a/ Christ. The word (Christ) is the Greek translation for the Hebrew word  (Messiah). Both these words when translated into English mean the Anointed One or the Chosen One. This word is not an obscure or rarely used word, on the contrary it is one of the most famous words in the Jewish and Christian religions. There is no doubt that a religious Jew like Barnabas would have been very familiar with this word.

At the very start of the Gospel of Barnabas Jesus is called the Christ: God has during these past days visited us by his prophet Jesus Christ (p.2). However, throughout the book Jesus denies being the Messiah: Jesus confessed and said the truth, "I am not the Messiah" (chap. 42). How can Jesus be the Christ and deny being the Messiah when both words mean exactly the same thing? Whoever wrote this book did not know the Greek meaning of the word Christ is Messiah. Barnabas was a Hebrew who lived on the island of Cyprus, a Greek-speaking island, and travelled around the 1st century Greek-speaking world![2] He was Hebrew and knew Greek and could not have made this mistake with such a famous word.

b/ The Rulers of the 1st Century A.D. In chapter 3 we are told that Herod and Pilate both ruled in Judea at the time of Jesus' birth: There reigned at that time in Judaea Herod, by decree of Caesar Augustus, and Pilate was governor. This is historically wrong for Herod and Pilate never ruled Judea at the same time. Herod ruled Judea alone from 37-4 B.C., while Pilate ruled thirty years later from 26-36 A.D.[3] The real Barnabas lived during the rule of Pilate, so if he really was the writer of this book, how could he make such a simple mistake?

c/ Geography. In chapters 20-21 of this book we are told about Jesus sailing to Nazareth and being welcomed by the seamen of that town. He then leaves Nazareth and goes up to Capernaum:

Jesus went to the sea of Galilee, and having embarked in a ship sailed to his city of Nazareth. ... Having arrived at the city of Nazareth the seamen spread through the city all that Jesus wrought (done) ... (then) Jesus went up to Capernaum (chaps. 20-21).

There is a major error in this account. Nazareth was not a fishing village, in fact it was about 14 km from the sea of Galilee and situated in the hills of a mountain range![4] Capernaum was the fishing village that Jesus arrived at with his disciples, not Nazareth.[5] Nazareth and Capernaum were two towns which Jesus often visited with his disciples[6] therefore any disciple of Jesus would know these towns well. However the author of this book does not! This casts doubt over the claim that he was a disciple of Jesus. It also make us doubt that he ever lived in that region.

Conclusion: the Gospel of Barnabas makes basic mistakes about the language, history and geography of the Jewish world in the 1st century A.D. These types of mistakes cast doubt over the claim that it was written by Barnabas in the 1st century.

3. The Gospel of Barnabas and Islam

The Gospel of Barnabas overwhelmingly supports the teaching of Islam. However, there are a few rare occasions when it does not.

a/ The Messiah. The Qur'an teaches that Jesus is the Messiah, and it never teaches that Muhammad is the Messiah:

Allah giveth thee glad tidings of a word from him, whose name is the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary (Qur'an 3:45, Pickthall).

However, the Gospel of Barnabas denies that Jesus is the Messiah, and instead says Muhammad is the Messiah:

Jesus confessed and said the truth, "I am not the Messiah". (chap. 42). Then said the priest: "How shall the Messiah be called?" ... (Jesus answered) "Muhammed is his blessed name" (chap. 97).

Both these ideas contradict the Qur'an.

b/ Wives. Marriage in the Qur'an binds a woman to one man but it does not bind a man to one woman. Muslim men are free to have several wives (Qur'an 4:3) and an unlimited number of female servants (Qur'an 70:30). However, the Gospel of Barnabas teaches the Biblical idea of marriage, that marriage binds a man and a woman equally together:

Let a man content himself therefore with the wife whom his creator has given him, and let him forget every other woman (chap. 115).

c/ The Birth of Jesus. The Qur'an clearly teaches that Mary had pain when she gave birth to Jesus:

(A)nd she withdrew with him to a far place. And the pangs of childbirth drove her unto the trunk of the palm tree. (Qur'an 19:22-23, Pickthall)

However, the Gospel of Barnabas teaches the opposite: The virgin was surrounded by a light exceeding bright, and brought forth her son without pain (chap. 3).

d/ The Heavens. The Qur'an teaches that there are seven heavens: The seven heavens and the earth praise Him (Qur'an 17:44, Pickthall). However the Gospel of Barnabas teaches that there are nine heavens:

Verily I say unto thee that the heavens are nine, among which are set the planets, that are distant one from another five hundred years journey for a man (chap. 178).

4. The Gospel of Barnabas and the 14th Century A.D.

There is good evidence that links this Gospel of Barnabas to the 14th century A.D.

a/ The Jubilee Year. The Jubilee year is a celebration commanded by God in the Torah. It was to be observed every fifty years:

Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each one of you is to return to his family property and each to his own clan. The fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you (Leviticus 25:10-11, NIV).

In the year 1300 A.D. Pope Boniface VIII falsely proclaimed that the Jubilee should be celebrated by Christians every 100 years instead of 50 years. However the next Pope, Clement VI, changed it back to every 50 years, and so it was celebrated in 1350 A.D.[7] Therefore, in the church's history there is a 50-year period when the Jubilee was thought by many to be every 100 years. The author of the Gospel of Barnabas has unknowingly accepted the Pope's false decree as true and included it in his book. For in the Gospel of Barnabas these words are put on Jesus' lips:

(I)nsomuch that the year of Jubilee, which now comes every 100 years, shall by the Messiah be reduced to every year in every place (chap. 82).

Is there any other evidence that could date this book to the 14th century? There is.

b/ Dante's Heaven. Dante was a famous and popular poet of the 14th and later centuries. Among Dante's work is a book of poetry called, The Divine Comedy.[8] In this book he describes ascending through the heavens to reach paradise. Dante describes ascending through nine heavens, with paradise being the 10th.

The author of the Gospel of Barnabas describes, in the same way as Dante, nine heavens before paradise:

Paradise is so great that no man can measure it. Verily I say unto thee that the heavens are nine, among which are set the planets, that are distant one from another five hundred years journey for a man ... and Verily I say unto thee that paradise is greater than all the earth and heavens together (chap. 178).

It appears that the author of the Gospel of Barnabas could have taken the idea of the nine heavens from reading Dante.

c/ The Manuscript Evidence. The manuscript evidence for this book is from after the 14th century. The oldest copies are written in Italian and Spanish and these are dated from the 15th century A.D. or later.[9]

5. When was the Gospel of Barnabas Written?

So far we have seen that the author of the Gospel of Barnabas was not familiar with the language, history or geography of the time of Jesus. He also has several 14th century ideas in his book and the manuscript evidence dates from the 15th century onwards. It therefore is reasonable to conclude that the Gospel of Barnabas was composed in the 14th century A.D. and not in the 1st century by a disciple of Jesus. Is this a reasonable conclusion? It seems so because even some Islamic scholars agree with this dating:

As regards the "Gospel of Barnabas" itself, there is no question that it is a medieval forgery ... It contains anachronisms which can date only from the Middle Ages and not before, and shows a garbled comprehension of Islamic doctrines, calling the Prophet the "Messiah", which Islam does not claim for him. Besides it farcical notion of sacred history, stylistically it is a mediocre parody of the Gospels, as the writings of Baha Allah are of The Koran. (Cyril Glassé, The Concise Encyclopedia of Islam, San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989, p. 65)

(The medieval period is from the 8th to the middle of the 15th century A.D.)

For complete article, please visit the following link: www.answering-islam.org (External Link)