What do I think of the Gospel of Barnabas? Well I have my English translation here by Lonsdale and
Laura Ragg. The manuscripts exist in Italian and Spanish and they date back to the 16th or
early 17th century and the Raggs translated this from the Italian manuscript. We don't have any
evidence or any copies or any quotes in any source whatsoever from before then, from the early church
for the first one and a half thousand years. Ragg's own English translation was subsequently
translated into Arabic and it remains a popular text there are websites dedicated to it by Muslims.
Many Muslims still think that it's authentic and takes us back to the gospel
of Barnabas. Well who was Barnabas? He was as the New Testament says a companion of Paul and he's
mentioned quite a bit in the Acts of the Apostles and there's a reference that Paul himself makes
in the Letter to the Galatians where 'men came from James', these Jewish Christians in Jerusalem
came basically to sort out the mixing between Jews and Gentiles that was taking place and Barnabas, it
says, and Peter and others sided with the Jews and separated themselves from the Gentiles. This upset
Paul a great deal and he got very angry about that. One of the reasons why he wrote the Letter
to the Galatians - NB it's not to be confused with the Epistle of Barnabas, the Letter of Barnabas.
This I have in a translation in 'Early Christian Writings' and it is found in its complete form
in the earliest complete copy of the New Testament that we have: The Codex Sinaiticus
which is in the British Library not far from where I'm sitting. And it was considered certainly by the
compilers of that Bible to be Holy Scripture because it's part of the New Testament.
Scholars today commonly date it to the second century A.D. and it is not thought to be by
Barnabas himself, but nevertheless it exists and it's definitely not the Gospel of Barnabas.
I've read both of them and they're definitely not the same: one is just a letter it's not that
long, the Gospel of Barnabas this text is about the size of all four canonical gospels
in one - it's really really long. So what do I think about it? Well here's some
possible thoughts: it's clear to me that the Gospel of Barnabas contains a number of anachronisms
and historical errors. Now an anachronism is when a person or a thing or an idea exists out of its
time in history especially one that happened or existed later than the period being shown.
For example, if you saw a documentary on YouTube about ancient Rome and it showed a soldier
using a watch to tell the time that is an anachronism. Clearly it's not possible for soldiers
to have used watches in ancient Rome they hadn't been invented yet! And there are anachronisms and
historical errors in the Gospel of Barnabas which tell us a lot about whether or not this text
is authentic or it's a much much later creation. And scholars today I have discovered usually date the Gospel of Barnabas, its creation, to the 16th or early 17th century
partly, because of the errors, the anachronisms and there are many of those, but for other
reasons as well which I won't go into. So these are some of my favourite errors and anachronisms:
In chapters 20 and 21 it says that Jesus sailed across the sea of Galilee
to Nazareth. Now Nazareth is not on by the sea - it's inland, and so here we go, in chapter 20 it says
'Jesus went to the sea of Galilee and having embarked in a ship sailed to the city of Nazareth' -
if you look on a map you'll see that Nazareth, then and now, is actually inland so that's a mistake.
Another good one is in chapter three and this is rather shocking
it says here: 'The wonderful birth of Jesus and appearance of angels praising God.
There reigned at that time in Judaea Herod, by decree of Caesar Augustus, and Pilate was governor
in the priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas. Pilate! Now we know that Pontius Pilate - who was there
at the trial of Jesus of course and condemned him to be crucified according to the New Testament -
began being the Governor in the year 26 A.D. not in the year zero
or before then (when Jesus was born) so that's just an error. But my favourite error of all is where Barnabas, the gospel of Barnabas, appears not to know that 'Christ' the word 'Christ' and the word 'messiah'
are synonyms, i.e. they mean the same thing! Now we know the word Christ or 'Christos' in Greek, it's just a Greek translation of the word messiah 'Mašíaḥ' both having the same meaning of
'anointed', 'the anointed one'. The Gospel of Barnabas though makes a major error in describing Jesus
as 'Jesus Christ'. Okay, so if I go to the Gospel of Barnabas and the very first chapter it says: 'True
Gospel of Jesus, called Christ, a new Prophet sent by God to the world: according to the description
of Barnabas his apostle. Barnabas, apostle of Jesus the Nazarene, called Christ.' And it also says: 'Dearly
beloved, the greater wonderful God has during these past days visited us by his prophet Jesus Christ'.
Right, so it's clearly establishing that he is Christ, and yet in chapter 42
it says: 'Jesus is asked "Who are you?" and Jesus confessed, and said the truth: "I am not
the Messiah." I am not the Messiah! Now according to the gospel he is the Messiah, i.e. the Christ so
there's some confusion. No Jew would have made this mistake because in the original language they both
mean the same thing, so in claiming that Jesus confessed and said the truth "I am not the Messiah"
it's making an error. Now the Gospel of Barnabas also has quotations from the Old Testament
which correspond to the translation of the Latin Vulgate Bible rather than
the Greek Septuagint which is what the New Testament quotes from, or the Hebrew
Masoretic text which is the standard Hebrew text. Now the Latin Vulgate translation
was made by Jerome, the famous Church Father, and he started that in 382 A.D. in the fourth century
so many centuries after the death of Barnabas. So the author of this is quoting from a translation
made centuries after the death of Barnabas! And as I said no one in the early church or
anywhere else ever quotes from this Gospel of Barnabas, no one knew anything about it.
So that my view is that it's very clear there are many forgeries awash
in the Christian world: we have a Gospel of Mary, the Gospel of Peter, the Gospel of Judas,
etc., etc., all of these are much much later than the first century. But why would anyone choose to write
this and this has his portrayal of Jesus is quite Islamic even though he denies the messiah
and of course the Qur'an does say he is the messiah it has Jesus saved from death he didn't die on
the cross. Judas Iscariot the man who betrayed Jesus is portrayed as taking on the appearance
of Jesus by a miracle. God does that to Judas and if you actually read the story it's quite
almost comical because Judas doesn't seem to realise he's been transformed so when the Roman
soldiers come and arrest Jesus they see Jesus who they think is Jesus and it's actually Judas, and
he protests "why, why are you arresting me? I'm Judas I'm Judas - go and arrest Jesus!" And they said HAHA
its you obviously, you know you're out of your mind, you're Jesus, look at you, Jesus! He says no I'm not!
and Judas can't understand what's going on, so it's quite comical in that way. Anyway
he is ultimately crucified instead of Jesus in that gospel. And Jesus denied in the
Gospel of Barnabas he denies he is God, he speaks of another who is to come, Muhammad of course.
So it could be you know i'm trying to work out why would anyone write something like this. Well it's
quite possible in the 16th and 17th centuries after people like Michael Servetus, these were unitarians,
they wanted to forge links or build bridges between Christianity and Islam perhaps bring them close
together as sister religions. And someone thought that they were they would create a gospel
that was very Islamic in some ways but in other ways it's still kind of Christian in other ways
so it's probably the authorship is probably a unitarian Christian who was very pro-muslim and was trying
to uh you know harmonise or even create a a new kind of synthesis between Islam and Christianity.
But much later in the 20th century thanks to Lonsdale and Laura Rag
as I say it was translated into Arabic and became very popular and some Muslim scholars have quoted
it as authentic because obviously it is very Islamic in many ways but
the evidence the textual evidence the content of it and the manuscript evidence the anachronisms
which are really serious and the historical errors all suggest um a late medieval work and
as i say for me the most compelling evidence apart from the anachronisms which are amazing
is that no one knew about this particular gospel before the 16th 17th centuries A.D.
As I say it is not to be confused with the Epistle of Barnabas which is known, it is extant, and it's completely different. That work is mostly allegory it's just looking through
the Old Testament and seeing Jesus all over the place. Basically it's a very unfashionable
way of reading the Old Testament, and it's very anti-Jewish, lots of anti-Jewish, anti-Judaism
arguments and polemic. It's almost certainly second century - not by Barnabas -
um and completely different from the Gospel of Barnabas. If you read them both you'll see how
different they are. We have this - we don't have this - so I'm afraid it's a thumbs down for me
for the Gospel of Barnabas. It's in my view a forgery and and to my knowledge the Muslims
I know involved in da'wah, I don't know anyone now who uses the Gospel of Barnabas
to prove anything because it's discredited although it is still popular in the Arab world.
And because its contents are similar in many ways to Islamic teaching and in some ways
quite similar to the earliest Christian teaching about Jesus it's therefore promoted as authentic.
But just because it has those similarities it doesn't mean it is authentic. People can still
fabricate gospels, as this is one this is one example of that, so that's my view. Until next time.