The Gospel of Barnabas is a book written in the style of the Gospels but fundamentally undermines many of Christianity’s key points. It is known as one of the “lost books of the Bible” despite its later date and factual errors. The text has been used by Muslim apologists for centuries because of its explicitly Islamic claims. But is it legitimate?
Why Is the Gospel of Barnabas Not Part of the Biblical Canon?
The gospel of Barnabas is a pseudepigraphical book, meaning it attempts to use a famous writer’s credibility to bolster its credibility. Other examples include the gnostic gospels (like the Secret Gospel of Mark), which were not found to be written by the actual apostles. Another example is the Gospel of Peter, a Gospel that claims to be written by the apostle Peter, but there is no historical evidence for the claim. Furthermore, it affirms ideas that the gospels and other New Testament books deny: it affirms docetism—the idea that Jesus only appeared human but didn’t take on human flesh. John condemns docetism outright in his first epistle. Docetism is also condemned in Hebrews when the author asserts that Jesus had to be like us in every way to be our sacrifice.
The earlier a manuscript is found, the more likely it is to be authentic. For example, the Gospels and the epistles have late second-century manuscripts. The earlier a book appears in external literature or is discussed by Christian commentators, the more likely it is to be authentic.
All these factors become important for discussing why the Gospel of Barnabas does not appear in the Bible. No evidence about the Gospel of Barnabas existed until the late Middle Ages when it appeared in Italy. The author uses several turns of phrase that Dante popularized in his books. The author presents many ideas that are only found in Islam.
If this work were truly published before the Renaissance, then Muslim scholars would have used it to debunk Christian teachings: it mentions Mohammed by name and includes the shahada (“there is one God and Mohammed is his prophet”) in the text, attributing the work to Jesus. There is no evidence for Mohammend or this statement in the canonical gospels.
Don Stewart sums up the chronology issues on Blueletter Bible:
“For one thing, the setting for the Gospel of Barnabas is not first century Palestine, but rather life in Western Europe in medieval times. According to the Gospel of Barnabas, it quotes Jesus as saying that the year of Jubilee was observed every one hundred years. However, the year of Jubilee was observed every fifty years until a papal declaration was issued in the year 1343. At that time, the Pope changed the time of observation from fifty years to one hundred years. The fact that the Gospel of Barnabas says the observation of Jubilees was every one hundred years demonstrates that it was written after this papal declaration.”
The Gospel of Barnabas contains numerous historical errors that wouldn’t have been made if it were written around Jesus’ lifetime—or even a century or two later. The writing style points to someone who was a cultural Christian sympathetic to Islam and wanted to bring the two worldviews together. Scholars call this approach syncretism—merging two worldviews and treating them as equal or the same.
What Are Some Factual Errors in the Gospel of Barnabas?
The Gospel of Barnabas contains factual errors that the Gospels do not. For example, the Gospel gets the high priests and governors wrong in a way that Luke does not, despite being a near paraphrase of Luke’s account of events. “There reigned at that time in Judaea Herod, by decree of Caesar Augustus, and Pilate was governor in the priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas.” Luke 2 says, “In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world.”
Annas and Caiaphas didn’t start their priesthood until several years after the census was called for. Pilate’s administration also started later than this account asserts.
What Does the Gospel of Barnabas Teach About Jesus?
The Gospel of Barnabas offers a different portrait of Jesus than the canonical gospels. In the Gospel of John, for example, we see Jesus claim to be eternal, and this nearly gets him killed (John 8:58-59). Jesus also allows Thomas to call him “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28). This differs greatly from The Gospel of Barnabas, where Jesus teaches that Thomas never claimed to be God. He explicitly condemns a man who calls him Lord.
“I confess before heaven, and call to witness everything that dwells upon the earth, that I am a stranger to all that men have said of me, to wit, that I am more than man. For I am a man, born of a woman, subject to the judgment of God; that live here like as other men, subject to the common miseries.” (chapter 93, 1907 translation by Lonsdale and Laura Ragg)
This statement shows that Jesus in the Gospel of Barnabas did not consider himself God or even the Messiah. Therefore, it must be rejected.
How Does the Gospel of Barnabas Support Islamic Teachings of Jesus?
The angel Gabriel features much more prominently in this book than in any of the true gospels, which supports the Islamic view that Gabriel is the primary way God speaks to his creation on earth. Muhammad, for example, only heard and spoke what Gabriel commanded. Another piece of pro-Islamic evidence is that in chapter 13, Ishmael (not Isaac) is seen as the Lord’s chosen descendant.
The evidence that this book is an Islamic recounting of Jesus’ life from the harmonized gospels comes in chapter 39, where Jesus mentions Mohammed by name.
“Adam, having sprung up upon his feet, saw in the air a writing that shone like the sun, which said: ‘There is only one God, and Mohammed is the messenger of God.’ Whereupon Adam opened his mouth and said: ‘I thank thee, O Lord my God, that thou hast deigned to create me; but tell me, I pray thee, what meaneth the message of these words: “Mohammed is messenger of God.”’ Have there been other men before me?”
The book’s crucifixion narrative is the most significant departure from Christian doctrine. In this account, Judas betrays Jesus, but God and his angels save Jesus at the last moment and make Judas appear as Jesus to suffer in his place.
The false gospel also makes claims that disagree with the Quran’s teaching of Jesus and should therefore be rejected. For example, the Quran says, “And the pangs of childbirth drove her un\to the trunk of the palm tree” (Surah Al Maryam 19.23).
This asserts that Mary truly gave birth to Jesus. The Gospel of Barnabas, meanwhile, supports the idea found in the Council of Trent that “as the conception itself transcends the order of nature, so also the birth of our Lord . . . just as the rays of the sun penetrate without breaking or injuring in the least the solid substance of glass, so after a like but more exalted manner did Jesus Christ come forth from his mother’s womb without injury to her maternal virginity.”
This comes from the Catholic desire to preserve Mary’s perpetual virginity and freedom from sin. If she is free from sin, she is also free of the pain of childbirth (according to Genesis 3:15). To defend this viewpoint, Catholics cite Isaiah 66:7-8. This is the view that the Gospel of Barnabas supports when it says, “The virgin was surrounded by a light exceeding bright and brought forth her son without pain” (The Gospel of Barnabas 3).
How Is the Gospel of Barnabas Related to the Gnostic Gospels?
There are some similarities between the Gospel of Barnabas and the gnostic gospels that are brought up as “Lost gospels.” The Gnostic gospels refer to a collection of works found in Nag Hamadi, Egypt, in 1945. The gnostic gospels were written closer to the life of Jesus than the Gospel of Barnabas, but their format differs considerably from the canonical gospels. They asserted that flesh was evil and that Jesus didn’t actually come in the flesh. They are also more esoteric, meaning the teachers need to interpret more of the sayings. Timothy Paul Jones gives a deeper look at how they differ from the canonical view of Jesus:
(What are the Gnostic Gospels? first published September 5, 2012, on Christianity.com)
Meanwhile, the Gospel of Barnabas attempts to intersperse elements of the canonical gospels with a pseudo-Islamic agenda. One of these gospels is quoted in the Quran: both the Infancy Gospel of Thomas and the Quran, Jesus makes clay birds into living birds. The Infancy Gospel of Thomas focuses on Jesus’ life between the ages of 5-12.
What Is the Difference Between the Gospel of Barnabas and the Epistle of Barnabas?
The Epistle of Barnabas is a document written during the first century. The Epistle is one of the most credible and orthodox extrabiblical documents today. It was included with the Shepherd of Hermas after the New Testament as other helpful (though not divinely inspired) materials. The early church discussed the Epistle of Barnabas and considered it valuable, although not inspired by God.
The text of the Epistle of Barnabas deals with how to interpret the Old Testament scriptures in light of Jesus. It helps its Jewish audience reinterpret the Tanakh to point to Jesus, something valuable for us to remember today.
Photo Credit: © Getty Images/FotoDuets
Ben Reichert works with college students in New Zealand. He graduated from Iowa State in 2019 with degrees in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, and agronomy. He is passionate about church history, theology, and having people walk with Jesus. When not working or writing you can find him running or hiking in the beautiful New Zealand Bush.
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