Gospel of Barnabas

The Gospel of Barnabas is a non-canonical, pseudepigraphical gospel claiming to have been written by the early Christian disciple Barnabas, who in this work is one of the apostles of Jesus. It is about the same length as the four canonical gospels put together, much of it harmonised from stories in the accepted gospels with some Islamic elements such as the denial of Jesus' crucifixon. The gospel presents detail accounts of his life; it starts with the nativity of Jesus, which includes the annunciation by the archangel Gabriel to Mary that precedes Jesus' birth. It follows the his ministry, ending with the messages of Jesus, who has survived the crucifixion, whereas Judas Iscariot replaced him, to spread his teachings around the world.

The Gospel of Barnabas only survives within two manuscripts in Italian and Spanish, both are dated to medieval times. It is one of three works, the other being the Epistle of Barnabas and the Acts of Barnabas, that bear the name of Barnabas though they are not related with each other. The earliest mention of the Gospel of Barnabas appeared in 1634 in a manuscript by a Morisco found in Madrid, while the published reference to it was possibly in the 1715 book Menagiana by the French poet Bernard de la Monnoye.

The Gospel's origins and author have been debated; several theories have been made but they are all speculative and none meets general acceptance. The Gospel of Barnabas is dated to between 14th and 17th century, thus too late to have been written by Barnabas, who flourished in the 1st century BCE and BC. Many of its teachings are synchronous with those in the Quran and against the Bible, especially the New Testament, though some also contradicts the former. The Gospel has been popular among Muslim apologists, who often cite the work while arguing for the prophethood of Muhammad, whose name is clearly mentioned in prophecies attributed to Jesus, and against Jesus' crucifixion, which never happened in accordance to Islamic teachings.

Contents

The Gospel of Barnabas is extremely lengthy, equal to the four synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) combined, and contains 222 chapters and approximately 75,000 words.^:36 Its original title, as appears 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;^:36:215 it follows the criticism from the author, who claims to be the biblical Barnabas, to "all them that dwell upon the earth desireth peace and consolation", among whom 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'."^:36

The Gospel appears to be a gospel harmony, with focus mostly given to the ministry of Jesus and his passion.^:36 It starts 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 finding in the Temple.^:36 The Gospel then jumps when Jesus was 30 years old; one day, he goes to the Mount of Olives with his mother to gather olives, and while praying there, he received the gospel from Gabriel.^:37 Following the revelation, he tells his mother that he will not longer with him. Jesus later goes to Jerusalem and starts preaching there. He then appoints twelve apostles to accompany him during ministry; the Gospel in fact mentions only ten of them and Barnabas is included.^:37:34 The Gospel follows its teachings, attributed to Jesus, on the origins of circumcision, condemnation to the uncircumcised, and the life of Abraham, including his destruction of idols and sacrifice of his son Ishmael.^:37–38

Chapter 39 contains the first of nine Jesus' mentions of Muhammad by name.^:38 The Gospel follows the event known as the transfiguration of Jesus and his proclamation of the messiah Muhammad who will come after him.^:38–39 After a number of his parables and teachings, it enters his passion, starting with his confrontations by the scribes and Pharisees on the matter of the woman taken in adultery.^:43 Mary is told by Gabriel of her son's forthcoming crucifixion and that he will be protected from it;^:45 the high priest, Herod Antipas, and Pontius Pilate are discussing on what to do with him.^:43 Jesus and his disciples hide in Nicodemus' house, where they do the Last Supper.^:44 Judas Iscariot betrayed him for thirty pieces of gold;^:44 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.^:44:11

Judas, whose face and speech are changed to resemble those of Jesus, comes back to the house while the disciples are sleeping.^:44 He is surprised to know that disciples think he is Jesus;^:44 his arrest comes next.^:45 Pilate commands his crucifixion and, after he died, his body is buried in Joseph of Arimathea's own tomb.^:45–46 Jesus prays to God for ability to see his mother and disciples for telling them what actually happened, adding that the mocking should happen until Muhammad's coming.^:46 He turns to Barnabas, whom he charges to write about anything that has occurred.^:47 The Gospel ends with the dispersion of the disciples and another criticism directed towards Paul.^:47–48

Textual history

"The complete silence of the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions is bothersome. If it was only a secondary text of little importance, this silence could be understood. But a fundamental work, which claims to have been written on the direct orders of Jesus would have to leave some traces in history."

Jacques Jomier^:51

The Gospel of Barnabas is dated from 14th to 17th century,^:57 too late to have been authored by the biblical Barnabas (flourished between in the 1st century BCE and CE).^:3 It is one of three extant works that bear 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 6th-century Gelasian Decree, in which the gospel was condemned as apocryphal.^:25 Another occurrence of a gospel using his name is in the 7th-century List of the Sixty Books^:xxiv or the Catalogue of the Sixty Canonical Books.^:533 Historians are in doubt whether these references refer to this Gospel of Barnabas since no quotes have been preserved to confirm if they are the same.^:25

The possibly earliest reference to this Gospel was found in the Biblioteca Nacional de España in a 1634 letter^:50 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 of the Gospel was made by the French poet Bernard de la Monnoye in his 1715 book Menagiana.^:26 The Dutch orientalist Adriaan Reland made a reference to its Spanish version in 1717 in his De religione Mohamedica (On the Mohammedan Religion).^:17 In the next year, a reference to the Italian version appeared in the Irish philosopher John Toland's Nazarenus (The Nazarenes). The British orientalist George Sale spoke of both the Italian and Spanish manuscripts in 1734 in his The Preliminary Discourse to the Koran.^:53

Manuscripts

Italian

A 1835 painting depicting the Austrian National Library, where the Italian manuscript was kept

In Nazarenus, Toland claimed to have been shown the manuscript he referred to as the "Mahometan Gospel" in 1709 in Amsterdam through an ambassador in the city and the anti-Trinitarian scholar Jean Frederic Cramer, the counsellor to Frederick I of Prussia.^:125 His description is not detail and provides no information of the general contents. He, however, quotes several things; 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 saying, "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 Israel, and of the rest of the world; and the truth, being hated of Satan, was persecuted by fals[e]hood, as it ever happens. For certain wicked man, 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. He observed that it was written on a "Turkish paper delicately gummed and polished" bounded with "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 of its description, "[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." In 1738, the manuscript was later received 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".^:50 It is currently possessed by the Austrian National Library.

The scholars Lonsdale and Laura Ragg published an English translation of the Italian manuscript as a book through the Oxford University Press in 1907. An Arabic translation, on the initiatives of the Egyptian scholar Rashid Rida, was published in 1908 and gained popularity in Muslim world; Saʿādeh, a Christian, translated it.^:214 During pre-release, Rida published promotional excerpts and information of the Arabic translation in his magazine, Al-Manār, starting in July 1907.^:218 The Raggs' English translation, without their critical preface, also became popular in 1973 in Pakistan,^:80 when it was published by M. A. Rahim and promoted as the "true gospel of Jesus" by local newspapers. In Indonesia, it has been translated for three times in 1969, 1970, and 1980;^:129 the 1970 translation, done by Husein bin Abu Bakar Al-Habsyi and Abubakar Basymeleh, was republished with additional footnotes in 1987.^:91 Translations in Dutch (1990), German (1994), modern Italian, Persian (1927), Spanish, Turkish, and Urdu (1916) are also provided.

Spanish

The Fisher Library, the University of Sydney, where the Spanish transcript was discovered

The Spanish manuscript was lost for more than a century,^:25 and Sale became the only source for a detail description written in his 1734 book The Koran.^:xi 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."^:xi Sale saw the manuscript while it was still possessed by the 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, who quoted several extracts from the English translation in a 1784 lecture, before its whereabouts became unknown.^:25

A Spanish Gospel of Barnabas was found at the University of Sydney's Fisher Library, among the books of the Australian politician Charles Nicholson, in 1976. A copy of Sale's manuscript made between 1736 and 1745,^:50 it is incomplete and has differences with the Italian, however; subheads of chapters 1–27 are absent; chapter 120, only its first third presents, ends in page 116 with a note, "Cap. 121 to 200 wanting"; the next page continues with chapter 200, which is 199 in the Italian manuscript, a discrepancy continues until chapter 222 in the Spanish manuscript (or 221 in the Italian); the Spanish' 218th chapter has different lines and the subhead "En que se cuenta la passion de Judas Traydor" ("In which the passion of Judas the Betrayer is recounted"); the Italian's chapter 222 is missing from the Spanish. J. E. Fletcher, who discovered it, published his finding in the October 1976 issue of the Novum Testamentum.

Scholars note parallels in the manuscript with a series of Morisco forgeries (collectively known as the Lead Books of Sacromonte),^:289 which may place its dating to the 16th century. Claiming to be a translation of an Italian manuscript (probably not same with the one extant), it opens with a prologue by a Fra Marino, likely a pseudonym.^:51 According to Fra Marino's story, he first encountered writings by the Church Father Irenaeus, in which he allegedly spoke against Paul and referred to the Gospel of Barnabas. Subsequently, while with his friend Pope Sixtus V at a library in the Vatican City, he discovered a copy of the Gospel of Barnabas and converted to Islam after reading it.^:9 An Aragonese Muslim, Mustafa de Aranda, who resided in Istanbul, is identified in the translator's note as the one who translated the Italian manuscript to Spanish. Nothing further is known about them, and none of Irenaeus' writings that mentioned the Gospel.

Through the University of Granada, Luis Bernabé Pons published the incomplete Spanish manuscript, with missing parts derive from the Italian, in a 1998 book titled El texto morisco del Evangelio de San Bernabé (The Moorish Text of the Gospel of Saint Barnabas).

Syriac

The Ethnography Museum of Ankara, where an alleged Syriac copy was thought to have been held

In 1985, the Turkish media reported that an alleged Syriac copy of the Gospel of Barnabas has been found in Hakkâri, Turkey, but was later confirmed to be actually containing the canonical Bible.

In February 2012, the Turkish press reported that the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism confirmed that a 52-page biblical manuscript had been deposited at the Ethnography Museum of Ankara, speculated to be containing the Gospel of Barnabas. Reports claimed that the manuscript was found in Cyprus in 2000 in an operation conducted by police against smugglers, and had been kept in a police repository since then. Photographs of a cover page were widely published, on which can be read an inscription in a neo-Aramaic hand: "In the name of our Lord, this book is written on the hands of the monks of the high monastery in Nineveh, in the 1,500th year of our Lord."

This finding was falsely reported by the mass media as being a 1500-year-old manuscript of the Gospel of Barnabas with prophecies of the coming of Muhammad. No further report has been published.

Authorship and origins

Some researchers believe phrases in Barnabas are similar to those used by Dante Alighieri

The Gospel of Barnabas is most likely of late medieval and even later origins, with the author reflecting familiarity of works that came out during this period.^:36 Nothing is known regarding the author, however; many hypotheses have been made but none is conclusive. Researchers who argue for an Italian origin^:52–53 noted its similarities with the poet Dante Alighieri's 14th-century work Divine Comedy. For instance, Barnabas portrays that God made nine heavens, in contrast to the Quran that says seven heavens, and uses Dante's catchphrase "Dei falsi e bugiardi" ("false and lying gods") thrice. Others also find textual similarities between passages in the Gospel and various texts of late medieval vernacular harmonies of the canonical gospels, all of which are speculated as deriving from a lost Vetus Latina version of the 2st-century Diatessaron.

Hypotheses of the Gospel of Barnabas having Spanish origins (or connections) have been made.^:52–53 The Spanish academic Mikel de Epalza suggested that the Italian manuscript was created by a Spaniard and reflects elements of Tuscan and Venetian dialects. He said the author may have been a Spanish student in universities, such as the University of Bologna, in which these dialects were spoken; Spaniards, he said, commonly studied there during the Middle Ages.^:63–64 Analysis shows linguistical fallacies in the manuscript, indicating the author's unfamiliarity with Italian.^{:64, 144} The author David Fox wrote of the findings of gospel forgeries in Arabic, written by two Moriscos, in 1588 in Granada which may support his theory, that this Gospel of Barnabas may have been another Morisco forgery.^:64

This theory also leads other researchers to argue for a Spanish priority; they believe the preface in the manuscript was not more than a fabrication and "mere literary device". According to Pons' theory, the Lead Books of Sacromonte found in Granada in 1595 was meant to initiate the Gospel of Barnabas. The Lead Books deal with James the Great's arrival with his disciples in Spain. The narratives state that James was tasked to hide these books in Spain, and a holy priest helped by Arabs would discover them. The "great conqueror king of the Arab kings" (probably referring to the Ottoman Empire) would later call for a council in Cyprus, the traditional place of Barnabas' martyrdom. Barnabas' name, however, was used, according to Pons, because the Lead Books were already "suspected and scrutinized" for containing Islamic elements, including the Shahada. The plans failed nevertheless when Moriscos were expelled in 1609–1614.

"It was done by somebody, whether a priest, secular, monk or layman, who had an amazing knowledge of the Latin Bible ... And like Dante, he was particularly familiar with the Psalter. It was the work of somebody whose knowledge of the Christian Scriptures was exceeding his familiarity with the Islamic religious Scriptures. It was more probable; therefore, that he was a convert from Christianity."

—The Raggs on the Gospel's origins^:23

A comparison between the Italian and Spanish texts shows several places where the Spanish reading appears secondary, in which words or phrases necessary for the meaning are missing in the Spanish text but presents in the Italian, and contrariwise.^:155 The biblical scholar Jan Joosten proposes the hypothesis of a lost Italian original, which he dated to the mid-14th century and may have been used by both these manuscripts. To prove his theory, Joosten noted that the Spanish text adopts numerous "Italianisms" forcefully; for instance, the Italian text employs the conjunction pero (therefore) and the Spanish text also reads pero (however), with the Italian sense being the one demanded by the context. Conversely, there are also several passages where only the Spanish reading makes sense and many features of the Italian text that are not found in the Spanish.

The names in the Spanish manuscript—Fra Marino and Mustafa de Aranda—may refer to a same person, according to Jan Slomp of Islamochristiana, since converts at the time often changed their names.^:65 He further argued that they may have been a Jew, with the name "Fra Marino" being based on marrano, a derision for conversos (Jewish converts to Catholicism).^:62 Other speculations of an Arabic original have also arisen, based on Sale's claims of an Arabic gospel popular among Muslims, attributed to Barnabas, though he himself admitted to have never seen it.^:50–51 The Raggs assumed that Sale misunderstood Toland's queries to Muslims in Nazarenus, where he actually challenged them to produce one similar to the Gospel of Barnabas.^:xvi No further proof for its existence, and his conjecture have been generally dismissed by researchers.^:50–51

Analysis

Anachronisms

A depiction of the Decapolis

The Gospel of Barnabas contains geographical, historical, and linguistical anachronisms.^{:27, 43} According to the Raggs, these prove its medieval origins^:433 and the author's ignorance of the 1st-century Palestine.^:24 The following is several of them:^{:38–39:19, 21–29}

• In chapter three, Pontius Pilate was said to have governed Judea and Annas and Caiaphas to be the high priests when Jesus was born, which happened in c. 4 BC. Pilate did not become a governor until 26/27 AD; Annas became the high priest in 6 AD, whereas his son-in-law Caiaphas took his position in 18 AD.
• In chapter 15, during the first century of Jesus' ministry, it is said that the "feast of Tabernacles was near" but in chapter 30, the author wrote of the Senofegia that would also take place in that same year; Tabernacles and Senofegia are synonymous.
• In chapters 20–21, it is said that Jesus and his disciples arrived in Nazareth after embarking on the Sea of Galilee and then "went up to Capernaum"; it was Capernaum located at the shore of the sea, and Nazareth was located more than 15 miles from Capernaum.
• In chapters 42 and 96, Jesus says: "I am not the Messiah"; the authors appear to not realise that the Greek Christ, as appears in the title, and the Hebrew Messiah are synonymous, both meaning "the anointed one".
• In chapter 63, Nineveh is presented as being located near the Mediterranean Sea; it was located 400 miles away in what is now Iraq.
• In chapter 65, Jesus is said to go to the "Probatica" pool, which according to the author was called so "because the angel of God every day troubled the water, and whosoever first entered the water after its movement was cured of every kind of infirmity"; probatica, the Greek for the Aramaic bethesda, means "of the sheep".
• In chapter 82, it is said that jubilee comes every a hundred years; the Jewish jubilee is every fifty years. It was only in 1300, when Pope Boniface VIII proclaimed that years as the first Christian jubilee and the next jubilee would take place a hundred years later.
• In chapter 99, Tyre was said to be near Jordan River, while it was located more than 30 miles.
• In chapter 144, the word pharisee is said to be meaning "seeking God"; deriving from Hebrew, it means "separated". In the next chapter, it is also said that the Pharisees started when Canaanites had power in Palestine, which means it would take place before 1000 BC prior to David making the rule to eliminate all foreigners from ruling in Israel. The Pharisees, a Jewish religious movement, started not earlier than the 2th century BC.
• In chapter 152, it is said wine barrels were in use during Jesus' times; vessels were more commonly used back then to restore wine.
• In chapters 214 and 217, Herod Antipas was said to have authority in Jerusalem and Judea, and be a pagan; his authority was in Galilee, and he practiced Judaism.

Anti-Pauline tones

Scholarly analysis shows the Gospel of Barnabas to be having anti-Pauline tones, most clearly shown in its prologue and epilogue, which show Paul as preaching the perverted version of Jesus' teachings and the "deceived" one who thought Jesus as God (or the Son of God).^{:12, 20–21} The Lebanese author and Christian missionary Fouad Masri, in his Connecting with Muslims: A Guide to Communicating Effectively (2014), opined that they are anachronistic for, as he said, the Barnabas presented in the Acts of the Apostles was Paul's best friend rather than his enemy.^:165–166 Writing for the Journal of Higher Criticism, Blackhirst suggested that the Epistle to the Galatians' account of the conflict between Paul and Barnabas could be the reason the Gospel's author attributed it to Barnabas.

Parallels with the Quran

Crucifixion of Jesus

Further information: Islamic views on Jesus' death

In the Gospel of Barnabas, Jesus was not crucified but Judas Iscariot, whose face was made to be resembling him, replaced him on the cross; and Jesus was raised up into heaven by God.^:2:xxvii This is in agreement with the mainstream interpretations of An-Nisa 157–158, affirming that Jesus' crucifixion did not exist but instead that of his lookalike did:

"'We killed the Messiah, Jesus the son of Mary, the messenger of God.' And they did not kill him, and they did not crucify him, but it was made to appear so to them. And those who have differed about it are in doubt about it: they do not have knowledge about it, but only the following of supposition. They did not kill him for certain. God raised him up unto Himself; and God is Exalted in Power, Wise."^{:2, 42}

Like the Quran, in the senses of its narrative of Jesus' crucifixion, the Gospel is theorised to have been influenced by or adopts docetism, a heretical Christian doctrine that the phenomenon of Jesus—his historical and bodily existence—was mere semblance, thus his human form was an illusion.^:98:xlvii Compared to the canonical gospels, according to Sox, the Gospel's portrayal of Judas Iscariot is a more sympathetic one; in all the accepted gospels, he is always portrayed as a villain or, specifically, a betrayer, and, in Christian traditions, his name has been synonymous with one who deceives under the guise of friendship.^:94–95 The Raggs saw that, since the alleged substitution—and the process—in the Quran is left unnamed and unexplained, the author of the Gospel attempted to fulfill this vacuum.^:xxvii

Writing for Islamic Studies, Ghulam Murtaza Azad, while denouncing the Gospel as a medieval forgery, found its narrative more reasonable than the one told in all four canonical gospels: "A man who is not religious minded can hardly believe that a person who wrought such great miracles could not save himself from humiliation and cross. The Christians say that he was crucified in order to save mankind from their sins. This explanation of crucifixion is strange and difficult to understand. And stranger than that is that the traitor was saved and the master was hanged." According to Abraham Sarker, in his Understand My Muslim People (2004), the narrative is popular among Quranic exegetes.^:129–130

Prediction of Muhammad

Further information: Jesus in Islam § Precursor to Muhammad

Muslims believe Jesus to be the precursor of Muhammad and had predicted the latter's coming, as written in As-Saff 6:

And remember Jesus, the son of Mary, said: 'O Children of Israel! I am the apostle of God (sent) to you, confirming that which is between my hands from the Torah, and giving glad tidings of an apostle to come after me, whose name shall be Ahmad.' But, when he came to them with clear signs, they said, 'this is evident sorcery.'^:2

In Islam, the word ahmad (Arabic for "the praised one") is believed to refer to Muhammad.^:157 While there is no reference to him accepted by Christian theologians in canonical gospels—which are accepted as authentic sources about Jesus—the Gospel of Barnabas otherwise presents many sayings attributed to Jesus, who prophecises the coming of Muhammad explicitly by name.^:2 The Gospel, however, places Jesus in the role of what should be John the Baptist—whose name is never mentioned—in the canonical gospels and as the forerunner of Muhammad, the messiah;^:90 this appears to contradict the Quran that agrees that Jesus was the promised messiah.

Nontrinitarianism

Further information: Islamic view of the Trinity and Nontrinitarianism

In Nicene Christianity, the concept of the Trinity means that God is one while also existing co-equally, co-eternally, and co-substantially as three persons (the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit), and Jesus is believed to be the Son. It is strongly rejected in Islam, who holds in strictness the concept of tawhid (indivisible oneness), considering the Trinity to be the sin of shirk (partnering God with His creation).^{:46, 135–136} Muslims believe that, like other Islamic prophets, Jesus was merely a human and never claimed to be God himself.^:223 The Gospel of Barnabas also contains sayings attributed to Jesus, in which he is said to deny explicitly being the "Son of God".^:7 The Gospel also narrates that Jesus appeared as if he was crucified as a punishment for people who called him so, and Muhammad was sent later to reveal this deception.

Perspectives

Christian

The Gospel of Barnabas finds no acceptance among Christians, who considered it inequivalent with the four canonical gospels and a complete forgery.^:307 Togardo Siburian of the Technical Academy of Bandung bemoaned it is often used "by [Muslim] propagandists in a guerrilla manner to prey on Christians with weak theological commitments. This is what is said to be the efficacy of the book as a news material for the 'Islamization' of churches today Christians are not aware of." Joosten called it a "hotchpotch of Chrisitian, Jewish, and Muslim materials". Writing for Religion in Southern Africa, J. N. J. Kritzinger believed the Gospel's existence is an obstacle to Christian–Muslim interfaith dialogue and added both sides should not use it to discredit one's religion. The Christian apologist Norman Geisler criticised Muslims who use it to validate their arguments:

"It is not surprising that Muslim apologists appeal to the Gospel of Barnabas in that it supports a central Islamic teaching in contrast to the New Testament. It claims that Jesus did not die on the cross ... Rather, it argues that Judas Iscariot died in Jesus' stead ... having been substituted for him at the last minute. This view has been adopted by many Muslims, since the vast majority of them believe that someone else was substituted on the cross for Jesus."^:296

Slomp argued that if the Gospel existed in antiquity, it is so hard to understand the absence of mentions to the Gospel by early Islamic writings,^:19 an opinion also shared by A. H. Mathias Zahniser in his book The Mission and Death of Jesus in Islam and Christianity (2017).^:93–94 Slomp labelled it a "conscious attempt at imitating a Diatessaron".^:35 The Egyptian Catholic philosopher Georges Chehata Anawati wrote in an entry to the Encyclopaedia of Islam in 1971, "The appearance of a forgery entitled the Gospel of Barnabas put into the hands of the Muslim polemicists ... a new weapon whose effects on the ordinary public, and even on some insufficiently informed members of universities are felt even today."^:32 A critical book, The Gospel of Barnabas: Its True Value by William F. Campbell, was published in 1989.

Islamic

Acceptance

The Gospel of Barnabas was accepted as a canonical gospel in the churches of Alexandria up until 325 AD. It is also known that it was being circulated in the first and second centuries after the birth of Jesus from the writings of Irenaeus ... who accused Paul of being responsible for the assimilation of the pagan Roman religion and Platonic philosophy into the original teaching of Jesus. He quoted extensively from the Gospel of Barnabas in supporting his views

— Ata ur-Rahim, Jesus: A Prophet of Islam (1979)^:12

The Gospel of Barnabas is a bestseller in Muslim world,^:295 and popular among Islamic apologists.^:1 Some has also linked it with the Injil, which according to the Quran was the third of four Islamic holy books sent by God to Jesus. According to the Scottish orientalist W. Montgomery Watt, it was not uncommon for many Muslims to be persuaded to believe in the Gospel that stands against many mainstream Christian doctrines without any question—some even being uninformed about the general scholarly consensus seeing it as a forgery—which often lead them to misunderstandings and inaccurate perception on Christianity.^:117–118 According to the German scholar Christine Schirrmacher, Muslims' positivity towards the Gospel is solely based on its self claim as the only one written from an eyewitness and disagreement of several mainstream Christian doctrines that Islam also disagrees with.

Among Muslims, the Gospel was first cited by the Pakistani counter-missionary Rahmatullah Kairanawi in his Ijaz-i Isawi (1853) but became more popular when Rida's Arabic translation presented in 1908.^:214 The Pakistani Islamist Abul A'la Maududi called it more "more genuine than the four canonical gospels". Rida added that it was "superior" compared to the canonical ones, especially in its "divine knowledge, glorification of the Creator, and knowledge of ethics, manners and values".^:235 In a 1940 course at the Al-Azhar University, the Egyptian public intellectual Muhammad Abu Zahra challenged Christians to make a refutation to the Gospel: "The most significant service to the religions and to humanity would be that the church take the trouble to study the gospel according to Barnabas and refute it and to bring us the proofs on which this refutation is based."^:2

At the 1976 official Christian–Muslim dialogue in Libya, hosted by Muammar Gaddafi, each Muslim delegate was given a copy of the Gospel of Barnabas alongside the Quran; the Gospel was omitted only after the Vatican protested.^:11:100 In 1979, ur-Rahim published Jesus: A Prophet of Islam, defending the Gospel.^:12 M. A. Yusseff wrote in The Dead Sea Scrolls, The Gospel of Barnabas, and the New Testament (1985) that no other gospels can equate it by "authenticity".^:295 An 2007 Iranian film, The Messiah, was partially based on the Gospel; it was the first film to portray Jesus from Christian and Islamic perspectives. It was praised for "generating interfaith dialogue" but condemned, mostly by Christians, for its story in which Jesus is presented as being not crucified and Judas Iscariot took his place on the cross, by which the film was controversial. Nader Talebzadeh, the director, was quoted as saying: "I pray for Christians. They've been misled. They will realize one day the true story."

Rejection

The Gospel of Barnabas is not without Muslim scholars who take a stance against the Gospel of Barnabas,^:298 some use it partially^:101 or reject it fully. The American scholar Amina Inloes stated the many differences between the Gospel and Quran make it avoidable. In a January 1977 issue of the Islamic World League journal, the Syrian writer Yahya al-Hashimi deemed it a polemical work written by a Jew in order to generate dislikes between Christians and Muslims.^:115 Al-Hashimi continued there is no need to use apocryphal gospels to prove Muhammad was a prophet because—according to him—he had been foretold by Jesus as the Paraclete in the Gospel of John. The Egyptian literary critic Abbas Mahmoud al-Aqqad mentioned several reasons to reject the Gospel, including the uses of Andalusi Arabic phrases and teachings conflicting with the Quran.^:34