Many Muslims state that the true Injeel (Gospel as taught by Jesus) is found in The Gospel of Barnabas which was later excluded from The Bible by Christian leaders who wished to put fake and corrupt teaching into The Bible. You can read a Muslim making that claim here.
The Gospel Of Barnabas is not the true Injeel. Rather, it is an obvious forgery.
In fact, unfortunately for Muslims who insist that the The Gospel Of Barnabas is the true word of God, The so-called Gospel of Barnabas contradicts Islam and the Qu’ran. It states that Jesus was not the Messiah when the Qu’ran says that Jesus is The Messiah. The Gospel Of Barnabas says that Maryam suffered pain in childbirth whereas the Qu’ran says Maryam did not suffer pain during childbirth. The Gospel Of Baranbas says that men are limited to one wife whereas the Qu’ran permits Muslims to four wives. Finally the Gospel Of Barnabas says there are nine heavens whereas the Qu’ran says there are seven heavens.
Muslim Scholars Reject The Gospel Of Barnabas
Muslims may be surprised to learn that prominent Islamic scholars have rejected The Gospel Of Barnabas.
Shabir Ally makes the point that The so-called Gospel Of Barnabas carries no internal authentication and thus is not acceptable as a Holy Text as its source cannot be proven according to the Islamic scholarly methods which are used to authenticate Hadith and other religious traditions.
Specifically Shabbir Ally says:
the chain of authorities for The Gospel Of Barnabas is missing…for centuries The Gospel Of Barnabas was not seen anywhere but then suddenly it turned up in The Middle Ages
What Shabbir Ally is saying is that in the same way that a Hadith without a chain of authorities (Isnad) is instantly rejected as unreliable and has no status as a Holy Text so also The Gospel Of Barnabas lacks any chain of authorities and therefore has no status as a Holy Text and must be rejected by Muslims.
The question then arises ‘Which Christian Gospels DO have a reliable chain of authorities which connect them down through the centuries all the way to Jesus Himself ? And the answer to that is that the Gospels of the current Bible, including the writings of Paul have exactly that chain of authority.
The current Bible has internal authentication which connects it to Jesus, then authentication in the second and third generation of Christian believers and then in all subsequent Church Councils down to the present day.
If Shabbir Ally or any Muslim wishes to know which are The Gospels of Jesus that are connected by an unbroken chain of authority all the way to Jesus, then those Gospels are the Gospels contained in the current Bible. That chain of authority includes Mohammed and The Qu’ran both of whom gave unqualified support and validation to the truth of the Bible. You can find proof of that here.
Another well-known Muslim scholar who rejects the so-called Gospel Of Barnabas is Yusuf Estes. Estes is quoted on the Islamic web-site Islamic Newsroom dismissing The Gospel Of Barnabas as a sad joke, a trick, and a fake as follows:
[The Gospel Of Barnabas] is a sad joke on many Muslims. Some have been tricked into believing this has something to do with the New Testament and it is more or less the “Lost Gospel” … But that is all nonsense, because the so-called “Gospel of Barnabas” is “Bogabas” (fake).
Estes then gives a description of the reasons that The Gospel Of Barnabas is a fake, most of which accords exactly with reliable scholarship. Muslims who accept the Gospel Of Barnabas are violating their own scholarly rules. In any case the obvious errors, contradictions and violations of both Islamic and Christian doctrines prove that the so-called Gospel Of Barnabas is an obvious fraud.
In another video, Yusuf Estes says simply ‘There was no Gospel Of Barnabas…If you think there was such a Gospel you are deluded…’ Estes goes on to infer that the Gospel Of Barnabas is somehow the product of drunkenness and leaves no doubt that he does not consider the Gospel Of Barnabas of value to either Muslims or Christians
The fact that both Shabbir Ally and Yusuf Estes reject The Gospel Of Barnabas is significant. These two are highly prominent as anti-Christian polemecists this being something of their speciality. Their engagement with Christian Scholars on this issue has exposed them to the fraudulent nature of The Gospel Of Barnabas and enabled them to reject it both as irrelevant to Islamic belief and a forgery of the true teachings of Jesus.
You can learn more about The Gospel Of Barnabas here
Under The Milky Way 