THE GOSPEL OF BARNABAS

The new edition of this book contains a comprehensive preface discussing up-to-date ‘Barnabas research’, which clearly demonstrates the high status and authenticity of the Gospel. The pivotal issue is the crucifixion of Jesus a. s. While the Holy Qur’ân tells us that Jesus was neither killed nor crucified: it only appeared to be so (‘wa lakin shubbiha lahum’(4:157)), the impact of the several hundred years older testimony of the Apostle Barnabas lies in its explanation of exactly what happened, the nature of the illusion, and how it came about that Judas Ischariot was crucified in place of Jesus. (cf. Section 215 ff.) Religious scholars and experts in ancient languages – Luigi Cirillo and Paul Fremaux, Shlomo Pinés, Henri Corbin, Jan Joosten as well as H. J. Schoeps – have rediscovered this opus as an authentic expression of Judeo-Christian tradition. Clear proofs of its affinity to the Diatessaron, the most prominent Gospel harmony by Tartian, of the second century, have previously served to demonstrate its old age. New insight into recent research leads us a big step further than the second century, approaching the established real source of all evangelical heritage. A significant detail of the parable of the sinner, well positioned in the course of the life of Jesus æ, demonstrates an undeniable link to the Nazarene version of the Hebrew Gospel: the mirror Jesus made ‘. with his finger. on the ground’ (Section 201), in which people recognised themselves as sinners, has been found precisely in the Gospel of Barnabas as well as in the original biblical text of the fellow disciple, Matthew, which is known as the ‘Nazorean’. Accordingly there is a real possibility that the Gospel of Barnabas is nothing less than the holy Testament itself and therewith the source of all biblical traditions. Apostle Barnabas is said to have received the Nazorean manuscript from Matthew as a gift, ‘who was the first to write down the words of his Lord’, as Papias, scholar of the Apostels, wrote 120 AD. Now we can understand the special reverence shown by Shaykh Nazim Efendi, when the Raggs’ Edition, from 1907, of the Gospel was presented to him 20 years ago; as he found it unopened, after it had spent nearly 100 years in the library of the Theological Seminary of the University of Freiburg (Germany), he said: ‘They didn’t cut it, they fear the truth.’ – He encouraged Spohr Publishers to publish it in the first German edition, a book, which is still criminally overlooked, even by Muslims, although there is no reason for them to fear its truth!