The Gospel of Barnabas 127bound several times before ending up in its present binding for all
we know, but certainly not an earlier manuscript from which it
may have been copied, let alone an even earlier manuscript in Greek
or Hebrew from which it may have been translated - David Sox
then had to find a likely forger:
It had to be someone who was clearly familiar with both the
Old and the New Testaments as represented in the Vulgate Bible - so
that repeated references could be made to Old Testament events and
prophecies whenever this was appropriate; it had to be someone
whohadconverted to Islam, butwho nevertheless would be'elever'
enoughnot to make the'forgery' correspondtoo closely or entirely
with what the Qur'an says about Jesus (for example, describing
the Prophet Muhammad as 'the Messiah' who would come after
Jesus, whereas the Qur'an confirms that Jesus was the Messiah
whose coming had been foretold by Moses; or, for example, con
firrning the traditional nativity story given in the offiàally accepted
Gospels, rather than giving an account of the birth of Jesus which
corresponded with the account which is given in the Qur'an; or,
for example, not mentioning various miracles of Jesus which, as
we shall see in Chapter Eleven, are described in the Qur'an, but
not in the officially accepted Gospels); and it had to be someone
who had the ability to ensure not only that the 'forgery' did not
correspondexactlywith whatis in the Qur'an,butalso that at least
a third of the contents of the 'forgery' confirmed exactly what is in
the other officially accepted Gospels, that at least another third ex
panded on what is in the other officially accepted Gospels without
contradicting them, and that the remaining third - even if it con
tradicted what is in the other offiàally accepted Gospels - never
theless appeared to be 'in scripture style to a haïr', to use the phrase
coined by Toland. It could not have been a particularly easy brief!
There was, however, one obvious possible candidate: Accord
ing to the Preface to the Spanish translation of the Gospel of Barna
bas, Fra Marino - the monk who is said to have stolen the Pope's
copy of the Italian version - had subsequently embraced Islam. 'If
we can only prove that he did not really steal the Pope's copy at
all,' we can see David Sox thinking, 'but that in fact he actually
wrote it himself - then we will have succeeded!' Naturally this
hypothesis would depend heavily on establishing beyond any
doubt that not only the binding, but also the Italian manuscript
itself was written between approximately 1580and 1600- any proof
of which is very conspicuous by its absence.