CHAPTER 1

THE MEANING OF THE WORD "GOSPEL"

1.      "Gospel" etymologically means "good news".  The word is applied in the Christian Book to the Good News which Jesus brought to a sinful world, whether by what He said or even more by what He did for men.  This is what Jesus and His apostles originally meant by "Gospel" (Greek: euangelion).  Thus, when Jesus proclaimed: "Repent, and believe in the Gospel" (Mark 1:15), He did not mean: "Believe the Book", since no book was yet in existence.  Rather, He meant: "……Believe in My glad tidings."

2.      But technically the word has been applied to writings in which this "Good News" or "Gospel" has been preserved and handed down. On the one hand some understand by it, in this sense, the whole Christian Book, often called the New Testament.  This is the sense in which it is clearly used in the Qur'an; here this Book is called the Injil.  There is no objection to this use, if we understand what we mean when we thus use it.

3.   On the other hand, the technical use by the Church was to apply the word especially to the fourfold record of Jesus, to distinguish the biography of Jesus on earth from the rest of the Sacred Book.  It is not, therefore, correct to apply it to each component of the fourfold record, for the real meaning of the expression "Gospel of St. Matthew", for example, is "the Good News (of Jesus Christ) according to St. Matthew", as it is thus in the original Greek.  In other words, it would be a mistake to say that each of the four Evangelists wrote a distinct "Gospel"; the truth is that each one of them, as he was inspired, wrote down the life and message of Jesus.  The titles of these several writings, however, are no more inspired than the titles of the Surahsj of the Qur'an are inspired.

     Thus we see that the word "Gospel" is used in three distinct senses:

1.      "Good News", originally as proclamation;

2.      The whole Christian Book, technically and generally.;

3.      The fourfold biography of Jesus Christ technically and particularly.

When Muslims and Christians talk together, they usually mean the whole Christian Book, however composed.  But if either party wishes to use the part for the whole and to apply the word to the fourfold record of Christ, or to even a component part of that record, he should do so in the full consciousness  that he is not saying a word against the full unit of the Christian Book.

Now we come to the question: What relation does this fourfold record have to other accounts, extant or non-extant, of the life of Jesus: These may be divided into two classes:

A.     Those that appeared in the apostolic age.

B.     Those that appeared after that age.

A.     These alone can have a certain value for us.  We know that they once existed and that they were valuable and acceptable in their time, though we need not say they were inspired. St. Luke says in his preface:

Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things which have been accomplished among us, just as they were delivered to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word………

Doubtless St. Luke used these memoirs freely and, thus, has given us the benefit of them.  But after performing their temporary function, they were no longer used. As not one of them is extant, neither Muslim nor Christian need discuss them further.

B.     Many so-called "Gospels" sprang up in the second century.  To gain authority, they were ascribed by their authors to Apostles.  Some of these have disappeared; others are extant in fragments.  These works were written by unscrupulous men, who employ the great names of the apostles to promote within the Church unapostolic teachings and theories about Christ.  Such is the "Gospel" ascribed to "Peter", fragments of which remain.  Such is the document which the heretic, Basilides, claimed to use.  He called it a "sacred gospel", handed down to him from Peter through a man named Glaucus.  This may be a convenient explanation, but the Spirit of God does not work this way.  Muslims, with their excellent sense of the value of universality and publicity in the matter of tradition, will agree with Christians in not merely suspending judgment about such a book as that, but in declaring categorically that it must have been a dishonest and dishonourable hoax.  The book itself has totally disappeared, if it ever existed at all.  So much for the "Gospels" of the second century.

Relevant here is also the fact that among the names even of these second century "Gospel" forgeries the name of Barnabas never occurs!! Thus, not only can no "Gospel of Barnabas" be reckoned as apostolic; it cannot even have the doubtful honour of being an early forgery.  (Whether any "Gospel of Barnabas" ever existed after the second century is more than doubtful.  See the next Chapter).

What then is the touchstone that distinguished the true from the false in these works; it is simply that those, whose origin was certainly apostolic, survived by universal approval; the remainder were allowed to disappear.  Our four accounts survived simply because they were fit to survive; they were apostolic; they were true accounts of the genuine Christ; they were, in short, inspired.

Is such a sifting process inconsistent with inspiration.  Indeed not!!! Even the Qur'an had to undergo this prosufficiently attested and others were accepted.  Similarly, we take our stand on this ground, that God inspired the acceptance of the Books which were attested and which His Providence and Spirit caused to be written.  The result is the present Christian Book, the Injil ("Gospel or "New Testament", including the fourfold record).

It results from this, then, that no book other than these four has a chance of being accepted now.  The work of sifting and attesting is completed.  That work can never be done a second time, for the decision has been made by those qualified to make it and at the time when it was possible to make it.  And, therefore, that decision goes further back still; it goes back to God.  Thus, just as no new Surah could possibly be admitted into the Qur'an today, so no new book could possibly be admitted into the Gospel or the New Testament.

This completely rules out any "Gospel of Barnabas" or any "Gospel" of anybody else.  Such a work, if discovered somewhere, could rank only as an interesting volume of traditions, the value of which could never be precisely determined.  In any case, such a work would have to be appraised in the light of the fourfold record of Jesus.  But when we have a work such as this "Gospel of Barnabas" before us - not only does it bear in itself the marks of a malignant forgery; even history for some five centuries after Barnabas is utterly silent about the title of any such work - then there ought to be no question at all.  The man who seriously seeks the truth will place it on his shelf of romances.  The fact that it is called the "Gospel of Barnabas" will weigh no more than if we were today to write and publish "The Autobiography of Joseph".  And we declare to our readers our belief, indeed our certainty, that this is the true state of the case.  This title, "Gospel of Barnabas", is the mere title of a late romance, as we shall prove.  We are just as able and competent to bring out another Jesus "Gospel of Barnabas" tomorrow, with the same name and different contents.  Who could prevent us? No one.  But nobody would be so unwise as to believe that Barnabas had anything to do with it.

From these remarks it will be seen how inappropriate is the claim of some people that the mere fact that there was originally a selecting process reduces all "Gospels" to the same value from the point of view of trustworthiness and authenticity.  Do such men say that the mere fact of the scrutiny of Zayd ibu Thabit renders the authenticity of the whole Qur'an of today doubtful? Or are the Traditions of Bukhari on the same level as the imaginations of medieval muslim romances about the Prophet? Is the God-guided test of apostolicity nothing; Are the books that passed this test to be classed as ranking in value with any romance that any author wrote or might have written or may write today, from Basilides to this hour.

To shelter under reasoning like this simply shows the desire to avoid truth at any cost.  We must use the intellect God has given us and be careful to use it honestly, lest we fall under condemnation on the Day of Reckoning.  No!!  there is all the difference in the world!! And the four accounts of Jesus stand out as having Passed God's Test, which no other account has done or will ever do.  This is the universal teaching of history.  To this voice our Muslim brother too must bow, because he also believes in the existence of a pure Christian Book, the Injil, in 1 A.H. (622 A.D.) and is utterly unable either to point to any Book extant today or extant then that differs from our Book, Luke and is replaced by it, or to point to any record of such a substitution having taken place.  This challenge has been made and we make it again.  It will not be answered.  Therefore we may conclude that the Christian Book of today is the Book of 1 A.H. and it is the Book which God gave us through Jesus Christ  - The Injil.

Thus, we repeat, a the "Injil of Barnabas" or the "Injil" of anyone else is ruled out.  Nevertheless, though we are not called on to do anything further, we are willing to examine this book and to see what external and internal evidence says about it.