The Gospel of Barnabas is a best seller in predominantly Muslim countries all over the world which may come as a surprise to many Christians who don't have a clue what it is [1]. There are several reasons why Muslims are fascinated by it and if it were accurate would have dramatic consequences for Christians all over the world. You can actually get it for your Kindle here. However as I will go on to demonstrate, the Gospel of Barnabas is an apocryphal fraud probably written sometime in the fourteenth or fifteenth century. Thankfully some Muslims have acknowledged its dodgy origins and  have admitted that its a fraud that should be ignored, sadly though its popularity means it is commonly brought up in conversations between Christians and Muslims. Hopefully this short article will help Christians to know a little more about the Gospel of Barnabas and will encourage Muslims to do a little more research before they make such extraordinary false claims about Jesus. The gospels we have in the New Testament are the most historically accurate and must be taken seriously by those wanting to know Jesus.

What have Muslims said about the Gospel of Barnabas?

Muhammad Ata ur-Rahim, insists that "The Gospel of Barnabas is the only known surviving Gospel written by a disciple of Jesus.... [and] was accepted as a Canonical Gospel in the churches of Alexandria up until 325 A.D." [2].

M. A. Yusseff, asserts that "in antiquity and authenticity, no other gospel can come close to The Gospel of Barnabas." [3].

Just those two quotes demonstrate just why so many Muslims around the world believe that the Gospel of Barnabas proves that what is taught as Christianity today is wholly false and that 'real' Christianity was preserved only in the true Injil (Gospel) of Barnabas.

Are the gospels based on credible eyewitness testimony? This is a question on which modern scholars line up on both sides of the divide. From my point of view, the cumulative case for the gospels being based on the testimony of eyewitnesses is clear and convincing. In his groundbreaking work, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, Richard Bauckham (professor of New Testament studies at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland) lays out an array of compelling evidence for the trustworthiness of the gospels. Among them is the test of personal names, which is covered in chapters 3 and 4 of the book. What he finds is that there is a remarkable correlation between the frequency of names found in the Gospels and Acts and the frequency of names found in writings outside the New Testament. This argument is also developed by Peter Williams, of Tyndale House in Cambridge, in this lecture.

The top 2 men's names (Simon and Joseph) in first century Palestine outside the New Testament have a frequency of 15.6%. The frequency of those two names in the gospels and Acts is 18.2%. The frequency of the top 9 men's names outside the New Testament is 41.5%; whereas the frequency in the Gospels and Acts is 40.3%. The frequency of the top two women's names (Mary and Salome) outside the New Testament is 28.6%; the frequency in the Gospels and Acts is 38.9%. The frequency of the top 9 women's names outside the New Testament is 49.7%; and 61.1% in the Gospels and Acts.

The top 6 male names in first century Palestine are:

1) Simon/Simeon
2) Joseph/Joses
3) Lazarus/Eleazar
4) Judas/Judah
5) John/Yohanan
6) Jesus/Joshua

In a previous blog, I discussed the textual integrity of the documents which comprise the new testament, and addressed the often-raised claim that the new testament has been substantially edited over the intervening centuries with doctrines being added and removed at the church’s will. As I argued in my previous blog, such ill-informed assertion is pure fantasy.

Another ill-conceived claim which I receive often is the assertion that the twenty-seven books which now constitute the new testament were chosen, more or less, arbitrarily. That is to say, there were dozens of other claimant documents floating around in the early centuries and the church cherry-picked those which best suited their own interests and purposes. While it is certainly true that the canonical documents were by no means the only documents circulating in the early life of the church, the view that the books were chosen arbitrarily or ‘cherry picked’ is, again, simply fanciful.