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SECTION C OTHER STRANGE OBSERVATIONS IN THE GOSPEL
OF BARBANAB The most important part of
our study is over. For, having
shown in the last section that "Barnabas" knowledge of Palestine was
defective, we have demonstrated that he was neither on Apostle of Jesus Christ
nor, in all probability, even a Jew.
So we may say that the case is over. Still, in this section we
shall point out other difficulties for anyone to accept "Barnabas" or
to appeal to him. In the next
section we shall show that no Moses Muslim can appeal to him, except on penalty
of citing a book which on occasions conflicts with the Qur'an. "Barnabas" relates
some stories which recall to us the myths and legends of old times. Thus he writes: God having created a mass of earth, and having left
it for twenty-five thousand years without doing aught else; Satan, who was as
it were priest and head of the angels…..knew that God of that mass of earth was
to take one hundred and forty and four thousand signed with the sign of
prophecy, and the messenger of God (Muhammad), the soul of which messenger he
had created sixty thousand years before aught else. (35) "Barnabas" seems
to have been quite familiar with the Divine history, for he seems to have known
that God created a mass of earth and left it twenty-five thousand years and
that, after so doing, He did nothing else. In regard to these years we wonder whether
"Barnabas" follows the Gregorian or the Hijrah calendar. Neither can we understand the secret
behind the number 144,001 prophets (which is not a sacred one): not do we believe that either Muslims
or Christians can give the names of a fraction of them. Can our Muslim friends
reveal to us the secret of God's creating Muhammad's soul sixty thousand years
before creating anything else? If
they say that this was to do Muhammad honour, we would reply that in the eyes of
God sixty thousand years need not be more than one single day. Besides, does the fact that Adam, for
example, was created thousands of years before "Isa render the first
superior to the second? These "sixty thousand years" have also been
mentioned in a later passage, which quotes God as saying that Muhammad's
"soul was set in a celestial splendour sixty thousand years before I made
anything". (39). But this minute chronology
of 'Barnabas" is not to be compared with the minuteness of his details of
the events which will take place in the fifteen days previous to the Day of
Reckoning. The first day the sun shall run its course in heaven
without light…..The second day the moon shall be turned into blood, and blood
shall come upon the earth like dew.
The third day the stars shall be seen to fight amount themselves like an
army of enemies…..The fifth day every plant and herb shall weep blood. The sixth day the sea shall rise
without leaving its place to height of one hundred and fifty cubits….The
seventh day it shall on the contrary sink so low as scarcely to be
seen….." (53) The strange thing in this passage is not its
prodigious features (for we may well believe that the Last Day will be far more
dreadful than "Barnabas" describes), but the literal, chronological
fashion in which the writer records these minute details. True, a series of numbers
are found also in the prophecies of Daniel and the Revelation of St. John. Then why should the numbers found in
"Barnabas" be considered strange, if those in Daniel and Revelation
are not considered strange? The difference lies in their respective use of
numbers. In Daniel and Revelation
numbers are used in a figurative sense, a manner of use which is intelligible
in the case of prophecies, visions, revelations, etc. On the other hand, it seems that "Barnabas"
records numbers with the confidence of an historian recording any ordinary
chronology of events and that his numbers are to be taken literally. Another legend-like story in
"Barnabas" is his account of the creation and fall of man
(40,41). "Barnabas" says
that at the gate of Paradise stood a horrible serpent, "which had legs
like a camel", too guard the gate.
To this serpent Satan came and said: Open
thy mouth and I will enter into thy belly, and so thou……shalt The serpent did so, and
Satan induced Eve to disobey God by eating of the forbidden "apples and
corn". She ate and induced
her husband to do likewise. But as
Adam was eating the food, he remembered the words of God and put his hand into
his throat, "where every man has the mark (of the apple)". Thereupon, God commanded the angel
Michael to cut off the legs of the serpent so that, while walking "he must
trail his body upon the earth". Such is the story in
brief. Some of its details are
known in some countries in the East.
How widely they diverge from the Bible record, and how irrational the
story is! Does the serpent really crawl today on its belly because the first
serpent had its legs cut off in punishment? The law of heredity covers only the
field of character, not that of physical accidents. In other words, if a father loses one of his arms by an
accident, it does not follow that his issue will be one-armed like him. Yet, even if we grant that the law of heredity plays a part in the role of accidents, we cannot escape the fact that it has failed to do so with regard to circumcision. For "Barnabas" says that Adam circumcised himself in fulfillment of an oath, which he swore upon discovering that he had disobeyed God (23). Here, obviously, the law of heredity has failed to work in Adam's issue. In any case, according to the Bible the first man circumscribed was Abraham |