Gospel of Barnabas Text that reveals Jesus’ prediction of Mohammed a fake?Turkey says it has acquired a 1,500-year-old Bible in which Jesus Christ is believed to have foretold the advent of Prophet Mohammed, according to press reports.Pope Benedict XVI has reportedly requested to see the book, which has been hidden in Turkey for the last 12 years before it was revealed this week.
The book in question, appraised at a value of $28 million, is said to contain Jesus’ prediction of the Prophet Mohammad’s coming; but the book was suppressed by the Christian Church for years due its similarities to the Islamic view of Jesus. This, according Turkish culture and tourism minister Ertugrul Gunay.“In line with Islamic belief, the Gospel treats Jesus as a human being and not a God. It rejects the ideas of the Holy Trinity and the Crucifixion and reveals that Jesus predicted the coming of the Prophet Mohammed,” Gunay told the UK’s Daily Mail.“In one version of the gospel, he is said to have told a priest: ‘How shall the Messiah be called? Mohammed is his blessed name’. And in another, Jesus denied being the Messiah, claiming that he or she would be Ishmaelite, the term used for an Arab,” he added.
According to the report, carried by Gulf newspapers and the Saudi Al-Arabiyya news network, Muslims believe the text, which many say is the Gospel of Barnabas, is an addition to the original gospels of Mark, Matthew, Luke and John. St. Barnabas is traditionally identified as the founder of the Cypriot Church, an early Christian later named an apostle.Gunay said the Vatican has officially requested to see the book, which Turkey had discovered during a police anti-smuggling operation in 2000.Read the full story here.
According to Timothymichaellaw:
If Turkey can prove it is from 500 AD it obviously scores a huge point since Mohammed doesn’t come until the end of that century, and thus the book would clearly be a prophecy about his coming. Lots at stake then, and no surprise the Turkish authorities are not so readily handing it over to the Vatican and are instead keeping it under military control.What could be really funny is that at the bottom it appears to read something like 1500 AD. It is admittedly tough to read, but it would quite a mistake to claim it is 1500 years old when it was produced in 1500. This date would also conform to what most scholarship believes anyway, that this gospel was produced around this time.
Another colleague just wrote:
Another modern fake, I’m afraid – hence the gold ink, and the uncured skins. (Forgers are obsessed with using skins instead of vellum or paper.) For once the forger seems to know some Syriac, but not very well. Not sure about the last date – looks like 1500 of ‘our Lord’, which is itself very dubious!
Anyway, this is interesting but read it with discernment:
Aydoğan Vatandaş, a Today’s Zaman journalist and author who has written two books on the Gospel of Barnabas, said there is no clue that the Bible mentioned in the Turkish press dates back to 1,500 years ago, but he said it is sure that the Gospel of Barnabas had been written in the Aramaic language and Syriac alphabet.Read the full story here.
It's a medieval forgery if not a modern forgery. Probably a modern forgery. The Turks know it's a fake that's why they won't let it out.
ReplyDeleteHi Kirk.
ReplyDeleteThe Bible in the original is written in three languages, Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. Hebrew and Aramaic are both related languages, being Semitic in nature. After the conquest of Alexander the Great (c. 332 B.C), Greek became the lingua franca of the Mediterranean.
In 539 B.C., the armies of Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, defeat Babylon, he allows the Jews to return and rebuild of the Temple to begin. This is the beginning of the Second Temple Period. After Seventy-years of captivity, many of the descendents of the Jewish captives had forgotten the Hebrew tongue and alphabet. The Aramaic alphabet was adopted for the Hebrew language, this helped the Jews make the transition, to still be a distinct people and yet being able to communicate with the society around them. Manuscripts of the Torah and Prophets were written in the Aramaic square script (Current Hebrew) rather then the earlier Paleo-Hebrew script (Ancient Hebrew). Nehemiah records the problems facing the restored Hebrew nation in 440 B.C.The use of Babylonian (Aramaic) square script would become the dominate form of Hebrew in the Biblical manuscript for the future. Although, there were Paleo-Hebrew manuscripts found at the Dead Sea and Bar Kochba introduced them on the coins, the square script remains until this day the current letters used for Hebrew.Around A.D. 500, a group of Jewish scribes, based in the Galilee, the Masorites, helped preserve the Hebrew text from the sixth to the 10th century A.D. They added vowel points to the Hebrew manuscript to ensure proper pronunciation. Earlier manuscripts had no vowel points, since most were familiar with the Hebrew words.
The Hebrew manuscripts produced by the Masorites form the basis of current Old Testament translations. These manuscripts are known as the Masoretic Text.
My guess it's a convenient fake, the fact that it appears at this moment of time when the ownership of Jerusalem and the Temple mount is being 'discussed', is no coincidence.