The Gospel of Barnabas is a non-canonical, pseudepigraphical gospel, written during the Late Middle Ages and attributed to the early Christian disciple Barnabas, who (in this work) is one of the apostles of Jesus.Geneviève Gobillot, Évangiles, in M. A. Amir-Moezzi, Dictionnaire du Coran, ed. Robert Laffont, 2007, p. 291. It is about the same length as the four canonical gospels combined and largely harmonizes stories in the canonical gospels with Islamic elements such as the denial of Jesus' crucifixion. The gospel presents a detailed account of the life of Jesus. It begins with the nativity of Jesus, which includes the annunciation by the archangel Gabriel to Mary which precedes Jesus' birth. The gospel follows his ministry, ending with the message of Jesus to spread his teachings around the world. Judas Iscariot replaced Jesus at the crucifixion.
The gospel survives in three manuscripts (Aramaic, Italian and Spanish), each dated to the Middle Ages. It is separate from the Epistle of Barnabas and the Acts of Barnabas. The earliest known mention of the Gospel of Barnabas has been discovered in a 1634 manuscript by a Morisco which was found in Madrid, and the earliest published reference to it was in the 1715 book Menagiana by the French poet Bernard de la Monnoye.
The gospel's origins and author have been debated, though it is commonly asserted to date to the 13-15th centuries, much too late to have been written by Barnabas (). Many of its teachings are synchronous with those in the Quran and oppose the New Testament.
Contents
The Gospel of Barnabas, as long as the four canonical gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) combined, contains 222 chapters and about 75,000 words. Its original title, appearing on the cover of the Italian manuscript, is The True Gospel of Jesus, Called Christ, a New Prophet Sent by God to the World: According to the Description of Barnabas His Apostle; The author, who claims to be the biblical Barnabas, wishes "peace and consolation to all them that dwell upon the earth." Then a critique follows of those (including Paul the Apostle) who are "deceived by Satan into preaching a 'most impious doctrine' by 'calling Jesus son of God, repudiating the circumcision ... and permitting every unclean meat'."
It appears to be a gospel harmony, focusing on the ministry and passion of Jesus. The gospel begins with combined elements of Matthew and Luke, such as the annunciation by the archangel Gabriel to Mary, the Adoration of the Magi, the massacre of the Innocents, the circumcision of Jesus, and his finding in the Temple. It then jumps to Jesus at age 30, when he goes to the Mount of Olives with his mother to gather olives; while praying there, he received the gospel from Gabriel. After this revelation, he tells his mother that he will no longer live with her. Jesus later goes to Jerusalem and begins preaching there. He appoints twelve apostles to accompany him during his ministry; the gospel mentions only ten, including Barnabas. The gospel follows teachings attributed to Jesus about the origins of circumcision, condemnation of the uncircumcised, and the life of Abraham. These include the destruction of his idols and the sacrifice of his son, Ishmael (notably, this upholds the Islamic tradition and contradicts biblical canon which holds Abraham's other son, Isaac, to be the intended sacrifice).
The gospel recounts the transfiguration of Jesus and his proclamation of the prophet, Muhammad, who will come after him. After a number of his parables and teachings it describes his passion, beginning with his confrontations with the scribes and Pharisees about the woman taken in adultery. Mary is told by Gabriel about her son's forthcoming crucifixion and his protection from it; the high priest, Herod Antipas, and Pontius Pilate discuss what to do about him. Jesus and his disciples hide in Nicodemus' house, where they have the Last Supper. Judas Iscariot betrays him for thirty pieces of silver; God then commands Gabriel, Michael, Raphael, and Uriel to save Jesus by taking him "out by the window that looketh toward the South" to the third heaven.
Judas, whose face and speech are changed to resemble those of Jesus, returns to the house while the other disciples are sleeping. He is surprised to know that they think he is Jesus, and he is arrested. Pilate orders his crucifixion, and he is placed in Joseph of Arimathea's tomb. Jesus prays for the ability to see his mother and disciples and tell them what actually happened. He turns to Barnabas, whom he charges with writing about what occurred. The gospel ends with the dispersion of the disciples and another criticism of Paul.
Textual history
The Gospel of Barnabas is dated from the 14th to the 17th centuries,:57 too late to have been written by the biblical Barnabas ().:3 It is one of three extant works bearing his name, along with the Epistle of Barnabas and the Acts of Barnabas.:53–60 A "Gospel according to Barnabas" was first mentioned in the sixth-century Gelasian Decree, and was condemned as apocryphal. Another mention of a gospel using his name is in the seventh-century List of the Sixty Books, or the Catalogue of the Sixty Canonical Books. Historians are uncertain whether these refer to this Gospel of Barnabas, since no quotes have been preserved for confirmation. Jomier believes a forger could have taken the title after the publishing of the Gelasian Decree by printing press.Geisler, Norman L. & Abdul Saleeb "Answering Islam: The Crescent in Light of the Cross" Baker Books, 2002, p. 304.
The earliest reference to the gospel may have been in a 1634 letter in the Biblioteca Nacional de España written in Tunisia by Ibrahim al-Taybil (Juan Pérez in Spanish), an Arabic-Spanish translator and author. He referred to the "Gospel of Saint Barnabas, where one can find the light". The first published reference to the gospel was by the French poet Bernard de la Monnoye in his 1715 book, Menagiana. Dutch orientalist Adriaan Reland referred to the gospel's Spanish version in his 1717 (On the Mohammedan Religion). The following year, a reference to the Italian version appeared in the Irish philosopher John Toland's . British Orientalist George Sale cited the Italian and Spanish manuscripts in his 1734 The Preliminary Discourse to the Koran.
Manuscripts Italian
In , Toland said that he was shown the manuscript he called the "Mahometan Gospel" in 1709 in Amsterdam through an ambassador in the city and the anti-Trinitarian scholar Jean Frederic Cramer (counsellor of Frederick I of Prussia). His description is not detailed, and provides no information about the gospel's general contents. However, he quotes the opening of the gospel ("The true Gospel of Jesus called Christ, a new prophet sent by God to the world, according to the relation of Barnabas his apostle"); a fragment ("The Apostle Barnabas says, 'He gets the worst of it who overcomes in evil contentions; because he thus comes to have the more sin), and the ending:
Jesus being gone, the Disciples scattered themselves into many parts of Palestine, and of the rest of the world; and the truth, being hated of Satan, was persecuted by falsehood, as it ever happens. For certain wicked men, under pretence of being Disciples, preached that Jesus was dead, and not risen again: others preached that Jesus was truly dead, and risen again: others preached, and still continued to preach, that Jesus is the Son of God, among which persons Paul has been deceived. We therefore, according to the measure of our knowledge, do preach to those who fear God, to the end that they may be saved at the last day of divine judgment; Amen. The end of the Gospel.
Dated to the end of the sixteenth century, the manuscript was anonymous. Toland observed that it was written on a "Turkish paper delicately gummed and polished", bound in the "Turkish manner", and the fine quality of its ink and orthography led him to assume that it was at least three hundred years old. In the appendix of his book, Toland wrote: "[I]t was an octavo volume six inches long, four broad, and one-and-a-half thick, and containing 229 leaves, each of about eighteen and nineteen lines." The manuscript was obtained by Prince Eugene of Savoy in 1738 through Cramer, who wrote in a dedicatory preface that no Christian had ever been allowed to see it "although they strove with all means at their disposal to find it and take a look at it". It is currently held by the Austrian National Library.
The scholars Lonsdale and Laura Ragg published an English translation of the Italian manuscript by Oxford University Press in 1907. An Arabic translation, at the initiative of the Egyptian scholar Rashid Rida, was published the following year and became popular in the Muslim world; Saʿādeh, a Christian, translated it. Rida began publishing promotional excerpts and information about the Arabic translation before its publication in July 1907 in his magazine, . The Raggs' English translation (without their critical preface) became popular in 1973 in Pakistan, when it was published by M. A. Rahim and promoted as the "true gospel of Jesus" by local newspapers. In Indonesia, it was translated in 1969, 1970, and 1980; the 1970 translation, by and Abubakar Basymeleh, was republished with additional footnotes in 1987. Translations in Dutch (1990), German (1994), modern Italian, Persian (1927), Spanish, Turkish, and Urdu (1916) have also been published.
Spanish
The Spanish manuscript was lost for more than a century; Sale became the only source for a detailed description in his 1734 book, The Koran. He wrote, "The book is a moderate quarto [...] written in a very legible hand, but a little damaged towards the latter end. It contains two hundred and twenty-two chapters of unequal length, and four hundred and twenty pages." Sale saw the manuscript while it was still in the possession of rector George Holme. It later passed to Thomas Monkhouse, a fellow of The Queen's College, Oxford, and was seen by the Reverend Joseph White. White quoted several extracts from the English translation in a 1784 lecture, before the gospel's whereabouts became unknown.
A Spanish Gospel of Barnabas was found at the University of Sydney's Fisher Library, among the books of Australian politician Charles Nicholson, in 1976. A copy of Sale's manuscript, made between 1736 and 1745, is incomplete and has differences from the Italian manuscript; the subheaders of chapters 1–27 are missing. Only the first third of chapter 120 exists, ending on page 116 with a note: "Cap. 121 to 200 wanting". The next page continues with chapter 200, chapter 199 in the Italian manuscript (a discrepancy which continues until chapter 222 in the Spanish manuscript, 221 in the Italian). The Spanish 218th chapter has different lines, and the subheader ("In which the passion of Judas the Betrayer is recounted"). The Italian chapter 222 is missing from the Spanish manuscript. J. E. Fletcher, who discovered the latter, published his findings in the October 1976 issue of .