Gospel of Barnabas
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'.
[3]: 36 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.
[3]: 37 [6]: 34 The gospel follows teachings attributed to Jesus about the origins of circumcision, condemnation of the uncircumcised, and the life of Abraham (including his destruction of idols and the sacrifice of his son Ishmael).
[3]: 43 Mary is told by Gabriel about her son's forthcoming crucifixion and his protection from it;[3]: 45 the high priest, Herod Antipas, and Pontius Pilate discuss what to do about him.
[3]: 44 Judas Iscariot betrays him for thirty pieces of silver;[3]: 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.
[11] The earliest reference to the gospel may have been in a 1634 letter[6]: 50 in the Biblioteca Nacional de España written in Tunisia by Ibrahim al-Taybil (Juan Pérez in Spanish), an Arabic-Spanish translator and author.
[13]: 53 In Nazarenus, Toland said that he was shown the manuscript he called the "Mahometan Gospel" in 1709 in Amsterdam[7] through an ambassador in the city and the anti-Trinitarian scholar Jean Frederic Cramer (counsellor of Frederick I of Prussia).
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 falshood, as it ever happens.
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.
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.
"[15] 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".
[5]: 214 Rida began publishing promotional excerpts and information about the Arabic translation before its publication in July 1907 in his magazine, Al-Manār.
[5]: 218 The Raggs' English translation (without their critical preface) became popular in 1973 in Pakistan,[17]: 80 when it was published by M. A. Rahim and promoted as the "true gospel of Jesus"[18] by local newspapers.
[3]: 25 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.
[24] Scholars note parallels in the manuscript to a series of Morisco forgeries (collectively known as the Lead Books of Sacromonte),[25]: 289 [4] which may date it to the 16th century.
[7] Claiming to be a translation of an Italian manuscript – probably not the extant one – it opens with a prologue by Fra Marino (likely a pseudonym).
[3]: 51 According to Fra Marino, he first encountered writings by the Church Father Irenaeus which criticized Paul and referred to the Gospel of Barnabas.
While with his friend Pope Sixtus V at a Vatican City library, he then found a copy of the Gospel of Barnabas and converted to Islam after reading it.
[27] In February 2012, the Turkish press reported that the Ministry of Culture and Tourism confirmed that a 52-page biblical manuscript thought to be the Gospel of Barnabas had been deposited at the Ethnography Museum of Ankara.
[6]: 52–53 [4] Spanish academic Mikel de Epalza suggested that the Italian manuscript was created by a Spaniard, with elements of Tuscan and Venetian dialects.
Epalza said that the author may have been a Spanish student at the University of Bologna (where the dialects were spoken), since Spaniards commonly studied there during the Middle Ages.
[32] According to Luis Bernabé Pons, the Lead Books of Sacromonte (found in Granada in 1595) were meant to begin the Gospel of Barnabas.
[3]: 65 Slomp said that they may have been a Jew, with the name "Fra Marino" based on marrano: a derisive term for conversos (Jewish converts to Catholicism).
[3]: 50–51 The Raggs assumed that Sale misunderstood Toland's challenge to Muslims in Nazarenus to produce a gospel similar to Barnabas'.
[3]: 12, 20–21 [34] In his Connecting with Muslims: A Guide to Communicating Effectively (2014), Lebanese author and Christian missionary Fouad Masri called the gospel anachronistic; in the Acts of the Apostles, Barnabas was Paul's best friend and not an enemy.
[41] Trinitarianism is rejected by Islam, which believes in the concept of tawhid (indivisible oneness) and considers the Trinity a shirk equating God with his creation.
[3]:35 Egyptian Catholic philosopher Georges Chehata Anawati [arz] wrote for the 1971 Encyclopaedia of Islam, "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.
[46]: 117–118 According to German scholar Christine Schirrmacher, Muslim positivity about the gospel is based on its claim of being written by an eyewitness and disagreement (favoured by Islam) with mainstream Christian doctrines.
[18] In the January 1977 issue of the Islamic World League journal, Syrian writer Yahya al-Hashimi called it a polemic by a Jew to generate hostility between Christians and Muslims.
[4] Egyptian literary critic Abbas Mahmoud al-Aqqad cited several reasons to reject the gospel, including the use of Andalusi Arabic phrases and teachings which conflict with the Quran.
