114 Jesus, Prophet ofIslam
Both those who have a vested interest in attempting to 'prove'
that the Gospel ofBarnabas is a 'forgery' and those who simply want
to be able to establish the truth of the matter, whatever it may be,
are quick to point out that although the early church fathers often
referred to the Gospel of Barnabas in their writings, this does not
necessarily mean that what appears to be a sixteenth century Ital
ian translation of the Gospel in the Imperial Library in Vienna is a
faithful translation of the early first century original. Any number
of changes could have been introduced during the intervening cen
turies.
This observation, it should also be pointed out, applies almost
equally to the four officially accepted Gospels, (of which the earli
est surviving manuscripts on which today's text is based are writ
ten in Greek -not Hebrew or Aramaic - and date from the 4th
century AD, sorne three centuries after the late fust century origi
nals were probably written), although this possibility has never
been too carefully considered by the established Church, since its
authority would have been - and still could be - inevitably and
seriously undermined as a result.
On the other hand, it can also be argued that if, on the balance
of probabilities, the four accepted Gospels are more or less accu
rate, then this must also be more or less equally true of the Gospel of
Barnabas, since much of its contents have very much in common
with the four accepted Gospels and are often in complete agree
ment -although of course there are two very significant major dif
ferences between the Gospel of Barnabas and the four official Gos
pels, namely the account of just who it was who was crucified, and
also the several specifie references to the coming of the Prophet
Muhammad, blessings and peace be on him, which appear in the
Gospel of Barnabas, but not in the other Gospels.
Ultimately any reader's assessment of the contents of any of
the Gospels must be highIy subjective. Either the words in any given
verse ring true, or they do not - and the reaction of any particular
reader will probably be different to that of any other reader.
As regards the various references to the Gospel ofBarnabas which
are known to have been made during the course of the last eight
een centuries or so -and which accordingly confirm that such a
Gospel was written and did exist, even if it no longer entirely ex
ists in its original form today - it has been weIl established that the
Gospel of Barnabas was accepted as a Canonical Gospel in the
churches of Alexandria up until325 AD.
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