Gospel of Barnabas

John Toland gave a detailed description of the manuscript

The earliest reference to a Barnabas gospel, which is generally agreed to correspond with the one found in the two known manuscripts, is in Morisco manuscript BNM MS 9653 in Madrid, written about 1634 by Ibrahim al-Taybili in Tunisia.[6] While describing how the Bible predicts Muhammad, he speaks of the "Gospel of Saint Barnabas where one can find the light" ("y así mismo en Evangelio de San Bernabé, donde se hallará la luz"). The first published account of the Gospel was in 1717, when a brief reference to the Spanish text is found in De religione Mohamedica by Adriaan Reland;[7] and then in 1718, a much more detailed description of the Italian text by the Irish deist John Toland.[8] Both Italian and Spanish texts are referred to in 1734 by George Sale in The Preliminary Discourse to the Koran:

The Muhammadans have also a Gospel in Arabic, attributed to saint Barnabas, wherein the history of Jesus Christ is related in a manner very different from what we find in the true Gospels, and correspondent to those traditions which Muhammad has followed in his Quran. Of this Gospel the Moriscoes in Africa have a translation in Spanish; and there is in the library of Prince Eugene of Savoy, a manuscript of some antiquity, containing an Italian translation of the same Gospel, made, it is to be supposed, for the use of renegades. This book appears to be no original forgery of the Muhammadans, though they have no doubt interpolated and altered it since, the better to serve their purpose; and in particular, instead of the Paraclete or Comforter, they have, in this apocryphal gospel, inserted the word Periclyte, that is, the famous or illustrious, by which they pretend their prophet was foretold by name, that being the signification of Muhammad in Arabic; and this they say to justify that passage in the Quran where Jesus Christ is formally asserted to have foretold his coming under his other name Ahmed, which is derived from the same root as Muhammad and of the same import.[9]

Sale's translation of the Qur'an text became the standard English version at that time; and through its dissemination, and that of the Preliminary Discourse, an awareness of the Gospel of Barnabas spread widely in scholarly circles; prompting many fruitless attempts to find the Arabic original to which Sale referred. However, in his description of the Gospel in the Preliminary Discourse, Sale was relying entirely on second-hand accounts. For example, contrary to Sale's notice, the words paraclete or periclyte are not explicitly found in the text of either the Spanish or Italian versions; although the Greek term periclyte is transliterated into Arabic in one of the marginal notes to the Italian manuscript at Chapter 44, as a gloss to the Italian 'uno splendore' which is indeed there applied to Muhammad by name. Subsequent to the preparation of the Preliminary Discourse, Sale was able to borrow the Spanish manuscript itself and had a transcript made.

A "Gospel according to Barnabas" is mentioned in two early Christian lists of "Apocrypha" works: the Latin text of Decretum Gelasianum[3] (6th century), as well as a 7th-century Greek List of the Sixty Books. These lists are independent witnesses. In 1698 John Ernest Grabe found an otherwise unreported saying of Jesus,[10] attributed to the Apostle Barnabas, amongst the Greek manuscripts in the Baroccian collection in the Bodleian Library; which he speculated might be a quotation from this "lost gospel". John Toland translates the quotation as, 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 claimed to have identified a corresponding phrase when he examined the surviving Italian manuscript of the Gospel of Barnabas in Amsterdam before 1709. Subsequent scholars examining the Italian and Spanish texts have been unable, however, to confirm Toland's observation.[11]

This work should not be confused also with the surviving Epistle of Barnabas, which may have been written in 2nd century Alexandria. There is no link between the two books in style, content, or history other than their attribution to Barnabas. On the issue of circumcision, the books clearly hold very different views, that of the epistle's rejection of the Jewish practice as opposed to the gospel's promotion of the same. Neither should it be confused with the surviving Acts of Barnabas, which narrates an account of Barnabas' travels, martyrdom and burial, and which is generally thought to have been written in Cyprus sometime after 431.

In A.D. 478, during the reign of the Eastern Roman (later Byzantine) Emperor Zeno, archbishop Anthemios of Cyprus announced that the hidden burial place of Barnabas had been revealed to him in a dream. The saint's body was claimed to have been discovered in a cave with a copy of the canonical Gospel of Matthew on its breast; according to the contemporary account of Theodorus Lector, who reports that both bones and gospel book were presented by Anthemios to the emperor.[10] Some scholars who maintain the antiquity of the Gospel of Barnabas propose that the text purportedly discovered in 478 should be identified with the Gospel of Barnabas instead; but this supposition is at variance with an account of Anthemios's gospel book by Severus of Antioch, who reported having examined the manuscript around the year 500, seeking to find whether it supported the piercing of the crucified Jesus by a spear at Matthew 27:49 (it did not). According to the 11th-century Byzantine historian Georgios Kedrenos, an uncial manuscript of Matthew's Gospel, believed to be that found by Anthemios, was then still preserved in the Chapel of St Stephen in the imperial palace in Constantinople.[10]

Some researchers argue that phrases in Barnabas are very similar to phrases used by Dante

Some researchers of the work argue for an Italian origin,[30] noting phrases in Barnabas which are very similar to phrases used by Dante[31] and suggesting that the author of Barnabas borrowed from Dante's works; they take the Spanish version's preface and translators's note as supporting this conclusion.[32] Other researchers have noted a range of textual similarities between passages in the Gospel of Barnabas, and variously the texts of a series of late medieval vernacular harmonies of the four canonical gospels (in Middle English and Middle Dutch, but especially in Middle Italian); which are all speculated as deriving from a lost Vetus Latina version of the Diatessaron of Tatian.[5] If true, this would also support an Italian origin.

Other researchers argue that the Spanish version came first; regarding both the translator's note, and the Spanish preface's claims of an Italian source, as fabrications intended to boost the work's credibility by linking it to the Papal libraries. These scholars note parallels with a series of Morisco forgeries, the Lead Books of Sacromonte, dating from the 1590s; or otherwise with Morisco reworkings of Christian and Islamic traditions, produced following the expulsion of the Moriscos from Spain.[33]

A detailed comparison between the surviving Italian and Spanish texts shows numerous places where the Spanish reading appears to be secondary, as for example, where a word or phrase necessary for the meaning is missing in the Spanish text but present in the Italian. Bernabé Pons, arguing for the priority of the Spanish version, maintains that these are due to transcription errors accumulating through the stages of creating the Sydney manuscript, which is a copy of a copy.[34] Joosten, however, while accepting that the carelessness of the two successive English copyists is the most likely explanation for most such instances, nevertheless argues that a minority of such readings are inherently more likely to be due to translation errors in the Spanish text. In particular, he sees the Spanish text as containing numerous 'Italicisms' as, for example, where the Italian text employs the conjunction pero, with an Italian meaning 'therefore'; while the Spanish text also reads pero, with a Spanish meaning 'however'; the Italian sense being the one demanded by the context.[35] He finds no counterpart 'Castilianisms' in the Italian text. There are, however, other passages where the Spanish reading makes sense, while the Italian does not, and many features of the Italian text that are not found in the Spanish; such as the titles for chapters 1–27. Joosten argues that this indicates that both the 16th-century Italian and Spanish texts must depend on a lost Italian original, which he, in common with the Raggs, dates substantially to the mid-14th century. Joosten states:

A systematic comparison of the Italian and Spanish texts of the Gospel of Barnabas leads to the conclusion that the Spanish was translated from the Italian at a date somewhat removed from the original.[36]

If the Italian version is the original, then a plausible context for the text in its final form may be within anti-Trinitarian circles in Transylvania. In the mid 16th century many Italian and German anti-Trinitarians, persecuted both by Calvinists and by the Inquisition, sought refuge in Transylvania,[37] whose church had adopted anti-Trinitarian doctrines in 1568, and whose aristocratic houses maintained an Italian-speaking culture. Michael Fremaux, in support of the hypothesis that the Italian manuscript may have been brought to Amsterdam from Translyvania, instances Symon Budny, Jacob Palaeologus and Christian Francken as late 16th century anti-Trinitrian thinkers with Transylvanian connections, whose religious teachings find close parallels in the Gospel of Barnabas.[38] Transylvania was nominally under Turkish overlordship and had close links to Istanbul;[39] and when following the death of the anti-Trinitarian prince John Sigismund Zápolya in 1571 it became difficult for anti-Trinitarians to publish locally, attempts were made in the 1570s to establish a printing press in the Turkish capital to publish radical Protestant works.[40]

Following the conquest of Moorish Granada in 1492, Sephardi Jews and Muslim Mudéjar were expelled from Spain. Although some found initial refuge in Italy (especially Venice), most resettled in the Ottoman Empire, where Spanish speaking Jews established in Istanbul a rich sub-culture with a flourishing Hebrew and Ladino printing industry. Numbers were further augmented after 1550, following campaigns of persecution by the Venetian Inquisition against Italian anti-Trinitarians and Jews.[41] Although Muslim teaching at this time strongly opposed the printing of Islamic or Arabic texts, non-Muslim printing was not, in principle, forbidden. In the Spanish preface, Fra Marino records his wish that the Gospel of Barnabas should be printed, and the only place in Europe where that would have been possible in the late 16th century would have been Istanbul.

The lost Spanish manuscript claimed to have been written in Istanbul, and the surviving Italian manuscript has several Turkish features;[42] so, whether the language of origin was Spanish or Italian, Istanbul is regarded by most researchers as the place of origin of the two known texts. A minority of researchers – such as David Sox[43] – are, however, suspicious of the apparent 'Turkish' features of the Italian manuscript;[44] especially the Arabic annotations, which they adjudge to be so riddled with elementary errors as to be most unlikely to have been written in Istanbul (even by an Italian scribe). In particular, they note that the glossing of the Italian version of the shahada into Arabic, does not correspond exactly with the standard ritual formula recited daily by every Muslim. These researchers are inclined to infer from these inconsistencies that both manuscripts may represent an exercise in forensic falsification, and they tend to locate their place of origin as Rome.

Few academics argue that the text, in its present form, dates back any earlier than the 14th–16th centuries; although a minority see it as containing portions of an earlier work, and almost all would detect the influence of earlier sources—over and above the Vulgate text of the Latin Bible. Consequently, most researchers would concur with a stratification of the surviving text into at least three distinct layers of composition:[45]

• An editorial layer dating from the late 16th century; and comprising, at the least, the Spanish preface and the Arabic annotations,
• A layer of vernacular narrative composition, either in Spanish or Italian, and dating from no earlier than the mid-14th century,
• A layer derived from earlier source materials, almost certainly transmitted to the vernacular author/translator in Latin; and comprising, at the least, those extensive passages in the Gospel of Barnabas that closely parallel pericopes in the canonical gospels; but whose underlying text appears markedly distinct from that of the late medieval Latin Vulgate[46] (as for instance in the alternative version of the Lord's Prayer in chapter 37, which includes a concluding doxology, contrary to the Vulgate text, but in accordance with the Diatessaron and many other early variant traditions);

Much of the controversy and dispute concerning the authenticity of the Gospel of Barnabas can be re-expressed as debating whether specific highly transgressive themes (from an orthodox Christian perspective) might already have been present in the source materials utilised by a 14th–16th-century vernacular author, whether they might be due to that author himself, or whether they might even have been interpolated by the subsequent editor. Those researchers who regard these particular themes as primitive, nevertheless do not generally dispute that other parts of the Gospel may be late and anachronistic; while those researchers who reject the authenticity of these particular themes do not generally dispute that other parts of the Gospel could be transmitting variant readings from antiquity.

This work clearly contradicts the New Testament biblical accounts of Jesus and his ministry but has strong parallels with the Islamic faith, not only mentioning Muhammad by name, but including the shahadah (chapter 39). It is strongly anti-Pauline and anti-Trinitarian in tone. In this work, Jesus is described as a prophet and not the son of God,[47] while Paul is called "the deceived."[48] Furthermore, the Gospel of Barnabas states that Jesus escaped crucifixion by being raised alive to heaven, while Judas Iscariot the traitor was crucified in his place. These beliefs—in particular, that Jesus is a prophet of God and raised alive without being crucified—conform to or resemble Islamic teachings which say that Jesus is a major prophet who did not die on the cross but was taken alive by angels to God.

Other passages, however, conflict with the teachings of the Qur'an—as, for instance, in the account of the Nativity, where Mary is said to have given birth to Jesus without pain[49] or as in Jesus's ministry, where he permits the drinking of wine and enjoins monogamy[50]—though the Qur'an allegedly acknowledges each prophet had a set of their own laws that might differ in some aspects from each other. Other examples include that hell will only be for the committers of the seven deadly sins (Barnabas: 4–44/135), anyone who refuses to be circumcised will not enter paradise (Barnabas 17/23), that there are 9 heavens (Barnabas 3/105).

If the Gospel of Barnabas is seen as an attempted synthesis of elements from both Christianity and Islam, then 16th- and 17th-century parallels can be suggested in Morisco and anti-Trinitarian writings.

The Gospel of Barnabas was little known outside academic circles until recent times, when a number of Muslims have taken to publishing it to argue against the orthodox Christian conception of Jesus. It generally resonates better with existing Muslim views than with Christianity:[51]

Qur'an Sura 4 Verse 157-158:

And because of their saying: We have slain the Christ Jesus, son of Mary, Allah's messenger. They slew him not nor crucified, but it appeared so unto them; and lo! those who disagree concerning it are in doubt thereof; they have no knowledge thereof save pursuit of a conjecture ; they slew him not for certain, but Allah took him up unto Himself. Allah is ever Mighty, wise.[52]

Rather than describing the crucifixion of Jesus, Gospel of Barnabas describes him being raised up into heaven[53] It can be likened to the description of Elijah in 2 Kings, Chapter 2. It also foretells the coming of Muhammad by name and it calls Jesus a "prophet" whose mission was restricted to the "house of Israel".

It contains an extended polemic against the doctrine of predestination (Chapter 164), and in favour of justification by faith; arguing that the eternal destination of the soul to Heaven or Hell is neither pre-determined by God's grace (as in Calvinism), nor the judgement of God, in his mercy, on the faith of believers on Earth (as in Islam). Instead it states that all those condemned at the last judgement, but who subsequently respond in faith, who demonstrate unfeigned penitence, and who make a free choice of blessedness, will eventually be offered salvation (Chapter 137).[50] Only those whose persistent pride prevents them from sincere repentance will remain forever in Hell. Such radically Pelagian beliefs in the 16th century were found amongst the anti-Trinitarian Protestant traditions later denoted as Unitarianism. Some 16th-century anti-Trinitarian divines sought to reconcile Christianity, Islam and Judaism; on the basis of very similar arguments to those presented in the Gospel of Barnabas, arguing that if salvation remains unresolved until the end times, then any one of the three religions could be a valid path to heaven for their own believers. The Spaniard, Michael Servetus denounced the orthodox Christian formulation of the Trinity (alleging the only explicit reference to the Trinity in the New Testament to be a later interpolation); and hoped thereby to bridge the doctrinal divide between Christianity and Islam. In 1553 he was executed in Geneva under the authority of John Calvin, but his teachings remained very influential amongst Italian Protestant exiles.

Included in chapter 145 is "The little book of Elijah";[54] which sets out instructions for a righteous life of asceticism and hermitic spirituality. Over the succeeding 47 chapters, Jesus is recorded as developing the theme that the ancient prophets, specifically Obadiah, Haggai and Hosea, were holy hermits following this religious rule;[55] and contrasting their followers – termed "true Pharisees" – with the "false Pharisees" who lived in the world, and who constituted his chief opponents. The "true Pharisees" are said to congregate on Mount Carmel. This accords with the teaching of the medieval Carmelites,[56] who lived as an eremetic congregation on Carmel in the 13th century; but who claimed (without any evidence) to be direct successors of Elijah and the Old Testament prophets. In 1291 the Mamluk advance into Syria compelled the friars on Carmel to abandon their monastery; but on dispersing through Western Europe they found that Western Carmelite congregations – especially in Italy – had largely abandoned the eremetic and ascetic ideal, adopting instead the conventual life and mission of the other Mendicant orders. Some researchers consider that the ensuing 14th–16th-century controversies can be found reflected in the text of the Gospel of Barnabas.[57]

The Gospel also takes a strongly anti-Pauline tone at times, saying in the Italian version's beginning: "many, being deceived of Satan, under pretence of piety, are preaching most impious doctrine, calling Jesus son of God, repudiating the circumcision ordained of God for ever, and permitting every unclean meat: among whom also Paul has been deceived."

Paul and Barnabas

Paul and Barnabas at Lystra by Nicolaes Pietersz. Berchem (1650 painting)

Hajj Sayed argues that the description of the conflict between Paul and Barnabas in Galatians supports the idea that the Gospel of Barnabas existed at the time of Paul. Blackhirst has suggested, by contrast, that Galatian's account of this argument could be the reason the gospel's writer attributed it to Barnabas.[59] Paul writes in (Galatians Chapter 2):

When Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong. Before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.

— Galatians 2:11–14

Paul was attacking Peter for "trying to satisfy the Jews" by sticking to their laws, such as circumcision. It is contended that at this point Barnabas was following Peter and disagreeing with Paul. Some feel it also suggests that the inhabitants of Galatia at his time were using a gospel or gospels disagreeing with Paul's beliefs, which the Gospel of Barnabas could be one of them (although the Gospel of Peter would seem a more natural candidate, as in the light of the second letter.) To Galatian's account we may compare the Introductory Chapter of Gospel of Barnabas, where we read:

Dearly beloved the great and wonderful God hath during these past days visited us by his prophet Jesus Christ in great mercy of teaching and miracles, by reason whereof many, being deceived of Satan, under presence of piety, are preaching most impious doctrine, calling Jesus son of God, repudiating the circumcision ordained of God for ever, and permitting every unclean meat: among whom also Paul hath been deceived, whereof I speak not without grief; for which cause I am writing that truth which I have seen and heard, in the intercourse that I have had with Jesus, in order that ye may be saved, and not be deceived of Satan and perish in the judgment of God. Therefore beware of every one that preacheth unto you new doctrine contrary to that which I write, that ye may be saved eternally.

— Introduction to the Gospel of Barnabas

From the previous passages, it is argued that in the beginning, Paul and Barnabas were getting along with each other; but that at the end, they started to depart in their beliefs to give to the importance of the Jewish law.

Some readers have noted that the Gospel of Barnabas contains a number of anachronisms and historical incongruities:[62]

• It has Jesus sailing across the Sea of Galilee to Nazareth – which is actually inland; and thence going "up" to Capernaum – which is actually on the lakeside (chapters 20–21).
• Jesus is said to have been born during the rule of Pontius Pilate, which began after the year 26.
• Barnabas appears not to realize that "Christ" and "Messiah" are synonyms, "Christ" (khristos) being a Greek translation of the word messiah (mashiach), both having the meaning of "anointed". The Gospel of Barnabas thus errs in describing Jesus as "Jesus Christ" (lit. "Messiah Jesus" in Greek), yet claiming that 'Jesus confessed and said the truth, "I am not the Messiah"' (ch. 42).
• There is reference to a jubilee which is to be held every hundred years (Chapter 82), rather than every fifty years as described in Leviticus: 25. This anachronism appears to link the Gospel of Barnabas to the declaration of a Holy Year in 1300 by Pope Boniface VIII; a Jubilee which he then decreed should be repeated every hundred years. In 1343 the interval between Holy Years was reduced by Pope Clement VI to fifty years.[18]
• Adam and Eve eat an apple (ch. 40); whereas the traditional association of the Fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (Book of Genesis 2:9,17; 3:5) with the apple rests on the translation of the Hebrew Bible into Latin, where both 'apple' and 'evil' are rendered as 'malum'.
• The Gospel talks of wine being stored in wooden casks (chapter 152). Casks of palm wood were used by the fifth century B.C., when Herodotus shipped wine to Mesopotamia.[63] Oaken casks were a characteristic of Gaul and Northern Italy, and were not commonly used for wine in the Roman empire until after 300 CE; whereas wine in 1st century Palestine was always stored in wineskins and jars (amphorae). The Pedunculate or English Oak Quercus robur does not grow in Palestine; and the wood of other species is not sufficiently airtight to be used in wine casks.[64]
• In Chapter 91, the "Forty Days" is referred to as an annual fast.[46] This corresponds to the Christian tradition of fasting for forty days in Lent; a practice that is not witnessed earlier than the Council of Nicaea (325). Nor is there a forty days' fast in Judaism of the period (see Mishnah, volume Ta'anit, "Days of Fasting").
• Where the Gospel of Barnabas includes quotations from the Old Testament, these correspond to readings as found in the Latin Vulgate rather than as found in either the Greek Septuagint, or the Hebrew Masoretic Text. The Latin Vulgate translation was a work that St. Jerome began in 382 AD, centuries after the death of Barnabas.[65]
• In Chapter 54 it says: "For he would get in change a piece of gold must have sixty mites" (Italian minuti). In the New Testament period, the only golden coin, the aureus, was worth approximately 3,200 of the smallest bronze coin, the lepton (translated into Latin as minuti); while the Roman standard silver coin, the denarius, was worth 128 lepta. The rate of exchange of 1:60 implied in the Gospel of Barnabas was, however, a commonplace of late medieval interpretation of the counterpart passage in the canonical Gospels (Mark 12:42), arising from the standard medieval understanding of minuti as meaning 'a sixtieth part'.
• Chapter 91 records three contending Jewish armies 200,000 strong at Mizpeh,[Note 1] totaling 600,000 men, at a time when the Roman army across the entire Empire had a total strength estimated as 300,000.
• In Chapter 119 Jesus instances sugar and gold as substances of equivalent rarity and value. Although the properties of sugar had been known in India in antiquity, it was not traded as a sweetener until industrial-scale production developed in the 6th century. From the 11th to 15th centuries, the sugar trade into Europe was an Arab monopoly, and its value was often compared with gold. From the mid-15th century, however, large-scale sugar estates were established in the Canary Islands and the Azores, and sugar, although still a luxury item, ceased to be exceptionally rare.[66]

Since the publication of English, Arabic, and Urdu translations at the beginning of the 20th century, the work has been popularly cited in support of the Islamic view of Jesus.[67] Islamic writers who cite the work include Rahmatullah Kairanawi, Rashid Rida, Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, and Muhammad Ata ur-Rahim.[68]

Standard Muslim teaching asserts that the Injil Arabic name for the Evangel or the prophetic Gospel delivered through the prophet Isa (Jesus of Nazareth), has been irretrievably corrupted and distorted in the course of Christian transmission. In consequence, Muslim teaching asserts that no reliance can be placed on any text in the Christian tradition (including the four canonical gospels of the Christian New Testament) as truly representing the teachings of Jesus. Viewed from an orthodox Islamic perspective, the Gospel of Barnabas might be considered a Christian work, as its many points of difference from the Qur'an suggest; hence, it too may be expected to have undergone corruption and distortion. Consequently, no orthodox Muslim writer accepts the Gospel of Barnabas as transmitting the authentic Injil, and few deny that the known Italian text contains substantial elements of late fabrication. Additionally, the Gospel of Barnabas cannot even be a variant of the authentic Injil because the real Injil must be authored from the perspective of Allah the same way the Quran is supposed to be, and not from the perspective of Barnabas.[69] Nevertheless, Muslim writers sometimes note those elements of the Gospel of Barnabas that stand in accord with standard Qur'anic teaching, such as the denial of Jesus as being Son of God and the prophetic prediction by Jesus of the coming Messenger of God and, consequently, some Muslims are inclined to regard these specific elements as representing the survival of suppressed early Jesus traditions much more compatible with Islam.[70]

Ethnography Museum of Ankara, where an alleged manuscript copy is held.

In 1985, it was briefly claimed that an early Syriac copy of this gospel had been found near Hakkâri in eastern Turkey.[71] However, it has since been demonstrated that this manuscript actually contains the canonical Bible.[72]

In February 2012, it was confirmed by the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism that a 52-page biblical manuscript in Syriac writing had been deposited in the Ethnography Museum of Ankara.[73] Newspaper reports in Turkey claimed that the manuscript had been found in Cyprus in 2000, in an operation conducted by police against smugglers, and had been kept in a police repository since then;[74] and further speculated that the text of the manuscript could be that of the Gospel of Barnabas. Photographs of a cover page have been widely published, on which can be read an inscription in a recent Neo-Aramaic hand, stating "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".[75][76] No subsequent confirmation has been published, either as to the contents of the Ankara manuscript, or as to any findings of scientific tests for its age and authenticity.[73]

• Islamic view of Jesus' death
• List of Gospels
• The Messiah (Iranian film) based on the Gospel of Barnabas.

The complete Italian text is transcribed with an English translation and introduction:

• Ragg, L and L – The Gospel of Barnabas (Clarendon Press, Oxford, England, 1907).

The Ragg's English translation was soon recopied in numerous unauthorised reprintings, chiefly in British India; and remains widely available to this day, both in paperback form and on the internet. These editions however, lack the Ragg's introduction and notes; as also their transcription of the Italian text and translations of the Arabic notes. They also differ from the original due to transcription errors. The Oxford University Press has not reprinted the 1907 text; however, now that it is out of copyright, a facsimile of the 1907 edition has been produced by Kessinger Publishing.

• Ragg, L and L – The Gospel of Barnabas (Kessinger Publishing, Whitefish MT, 2009, 578pp).

A second Italian edition – in parallel columns with a modernised text:

• Eugenio Giustolisi and Giuseppe Rizzardi, Il vangelo di Barnaba. Un vangelo per i musulmani? (Milano: Istituto Propaganda Libraria, 1991).

The complete text of the Italian manuscript has been published in photo-facsimile; with a French translation and extensive commentary and textual apparatus:

• Cirillo L. & Fremaux M. Évangile de Barnabé: recherches sur la composition et l'origine, Editions Beauchesne, Paris, 1977, 598p

In 1999 Michel Fremaux issued a second edition of the manuscript facsimile, updated to take account of the recently rediscovered transcription of the Spanish manuscript:

• Cirillo L. & Fremaux M. Évangile de Barnabé: Fac-simile, traduction et notes, Editions Beauchesne, Paris, 1999, 364pp

The text of the Spanish manuscript has been published with introduction, and annotations identifying variant readings in the Spanish and Italian texts:

• Luis F. Bernabé Pons, El texto morisco del Evangelio de San Bernabé (Granada: Universidad de Granada, 1998), 260p

• Lonsdale & Laura Ragg, The Gospel of Barnabas, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1907. ISBN 1-881316-15-7. English translation at: sacred-texts.com
• R. Blackhirst, "The Medieval Gospel of Barnabas": Full text of the Italian ms of Gospel of Barnabas, (in English), with supplementary material and photographs
  • Preface of the Spanish manuscript
  • Bibliography
• Blackhirst, "Was there an early Gospel of Barnabas?"
• History as a Literary Weapon:The Gospel of Barnabas in Muslim-Christian Polemics Oddbjørn Leirvik: a historical survey of both Christian and Islamic perspectives.
• Android App for The Gospel of Barnabas on Google Playstore.