Editing Gospel of Barnabas (section)

== Authorship and origins ==
[[File:Dante Luca.jpg|thumb|alt=Painting of Dante Alighieri, looking at a book|Some researchers believe that phrases in Barnabas resemble those used by [[Dante Alighieri]].]]
The Gospel of Barnabas is probably of [[Late Middle Ages|late-medieval]] or later origin,<ref name="de" /> since its author is familiar with works written during this period.<ref name="value" />{{rp|36}} Nothing is known about its author, however; many hypotheses have been made, but none are conclusive.<ref name="date"/> Researchers who argue for an Italian origin<ref name="value" />{{rp|52–53}} note its similarities to [[Dante Alighieri]]'s early-14th-century ''[[Divine Comedy]]''.<ref name="de" /> Barnabas says that God made nine heavens, in contrast to the Quran's [[Seven Heavens#Islam|seven]], and uses Dante's catchphrase {{lang|it|"Dei falsi e bugiardi"}} ("false and lying gods") three times.<ref name="forgery">{{Cite journal |url=https://www.academia.edu/22980858 |journal=Islamic Writings: The Student Journal of the Islamic College |title=The Gospel of Barnabas: A Muslim Forgery? |last=Inloes |first=Amina |author-link=Amina Inloes |volume=6 |issue=1 |date=2016 |pages=49–65 |access-date=2022-05-23 |archive-date=2022-05-23 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220523122334/https://www.academia.edu/22980858/The_Gospel_of_Barnabas_A_Muslim_Forgery |url-status=live }}</ref> Others also find textual similarities between passages in the gospel and late-medieval vernacular [[Gospel harmony|harmonies]] of the canonical gospels.<ref name="date"/><ref name="de" />

The gospel has been hypothesized as having Spanish origins or connections.<ref name="value" />{{rp|52–53}}<ref name="de" /> Spanish academic [[Mikel de Epalza]] suggested that the Italian manuscript was created by a Spaniard, with elements of Tuscan and Venetian dialects. Epalza said that the author may have been a Spanish student at the [[University of Bologna]] (where the dialects were spoken), since Spaniards commonly studied there during the Middle Ages.<ref name="Sox" />{{rp|63–64}} Analysis indicates linguistic errors in the manuscript, demonstrating the author's unfamiliarity with Italian.<ref name="Sox" />{{rp|64, 144}}{{efn|In chapters 3 and 4, for instance, the phrase "immense shine" were translated into three different spellings: {{lang|it|"immenso splondere"}}, {{lang|it|"imenso splondere"}}, and {{lang|it|"inmenso splondere"}}; instead of {{lang|it|anno}} (year), this manuscript uses {{lang|it|hanno}}.<ref name="Sox" />{{rp|64}}}} Author David Fox wrote about Arabic gospel forgeries written in 1588 by two Moriscos in [[Granada]], theorizing that the Gospel of Barnabas may have been another Morisco forgery.<ref name="Sox" />{{rp|64}}<ref name="de" />

This theory also leads other researchers to advocate a Spanish priority; they believe that the preface in the Spanish manuscript was a fabrication,<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Wiegers |first=G. A. |date=April–June 1995 |title=Muhammad as the Messiah: A comparison of the polemical works of Juan Alonso with the Gospel of Barnabas |journal=Bibliotheca Orientalis |volume=LII |issue=3/4 |pages=245–292 |issn=0006-1913 }}</ref> a "mere literary device".<ref>{{Cite journal |title=The Islamic Image of Paul and the Origin of the Gospel of Barnabas |date=1996 |journal=[[Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam]] |url=https://www.academia.edu/45438218 |volume=20 |pages=200–228 |issn=0334-4118 |last=van Koningsveld |first=Pieter |access-date=2022-05-26 |archive-date=2022-05-26 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220526015246/https://www.academia.edu/45438218/The_Islamic_Image_of_Paul_and_the_Origins_of_the_Gospel_of_Barnabas |url-status=live }}</ref> According to Luis Bernabé Pons, the [[Lead Books of Sacromonte]] (found in Granada in 1595) were meant to begin the Gospel of Barnabas.<ref name="de" /> The books, written on round [[lead]] leaves, deal with the arrival of [[James the Great]] and his disciples in Spain.<ref name="de" /> The books say that James was tasked to hide them in Spain, where a priest (helped by Arabians) would discover them.<ref name="de" /> The "great conqueror king of the Arab kings"{{snd}}probably referring to the [[Ottoman Empire]]{{snd}}later summoned a council in [[Cyprus]], the traditional site of Barnabas' martyrdom.<ref name="de" /> Pons said that Barnabas' name was used because the Lead Books were "suspected and scrutinized" for Islamic/Jewish content, including the {{transliteration|ar|[[Shahada]]}}.<ref name="de" /> The plan failed when the Moriscos were [[Expulsion of the Moriscos|expelled]] between 1609 and 1614.<ref name="de" />

{{Quote box
| quote  = It was done by somebody, whether a priest, secular, monk or layman, who had an amazing knowledge of the Latin Bible&nbsp; [...] And like Dante, he was particularly familiar with the Psalter. It was the work of somebody whose knowledge of the Christian Scriptures was exceeding his familiarity with the Islamic religious Scriptures. It was more probable; therefore, that he was a convert from Christianity.
| source =—Lonsdale and Laura Ragg, on the gospel's origins<ref name="Rida" />{{rp|23}}
| width  = 25%
}}
A comparison of the Italian and Spanish texts indicates several places where the Spanish reading appears secondary; words or phrases necessary for meaning are missing from the Spanish text, but appear in the Italian.<ref>{{Cite book |title=El texto morisco del Evangelio de San Bernabé |trans-title=The Moorish Text of the Gospel of Saint Barnabas |language=es |last=Pons |first=Luis F. Bernabé |publisher=[[University of Granada]] |isbn=84-338-2418-X |date=1998 }}</ref>{{rp|155}} Biblical scholar [[Jan Joosten (biblical scholar)|Jan Joosten]] hypothesized a lost Italian original, which he dated to the mid-14th century and may have been used by both manuscripts. Joosten noted that the Spanish text adapts a number of "Italianisms". The Italian text uses the conjunction {{lang|it|pero}} ("therefore"), and the Spanish text reads {{lang|es|pero}} ("however"); the Italian word is the one required in the context. Only the Spanish reading makes sense in several passages, however, and many features of the Italian text are not found in the Spanish.<ref name="date"/>

Jan Slomp wrote in ''[[Islamochristiana]]'' that the names in the Spanish manuscript (Fra Marino and Mustafa de Aranda) may refer to the same person, since converts at the time often changed their names.<ref name="Sox" />{{rp|65}} Slomp said that they may have been a Jew, with the name "Fra Marino" based on {{lang|es|[[marrano]]}}: a derisive term for {{lang|es|[[converso]]s}} (Jewish converts to Catholicism).<ref name="Sox" />{{rp|62}} Other theories about an Arabic original are based on Sale's description of an Arabic gospel popular among Muslims, attributed to Barnabas, which he had never seen.<ref name="Sox" />{{rp|50–51}} The Raggs assumed that Sale misunderstood Toland's challenge to Muslims in ''Nazarenus'' to produce a gospel similar to Barnabas'.<ref name="Raggs" />{{rp|xvi}}{{efn|Toland wrote, "You are particularly desired to enquire after the Gospel of Barnabas: for such a book is in the possession of his most serene Highness Prince Eugene of Savoy, and was undoubtedly written [...] by a profest Mahometan; as the Summaries of the Chapters, and the Arabic Notes on the margin of the Italian Translation, are the work of a zealous adversary to Christianity. And if you should happen to meet with this book, you are diligently to enquire, whether they acknowledge it as divine, whether it be the onely Gospel they admit? or, in case they have any more of this kind, whicli are Apocryphal, and which authentic, in their account?"<ref name="Raggs" />{{rp|lxix–lxx}}}} No further proof for it exists, and Sale's conjecture has been generally dismissed by researchers.<ref name="Sox" />{{rp|50–51}}