The Trinity is a Pagan Doctrine.

My Dear Suleyman,

I sincerely hope you are not going to allow yourself to be misled by this forgery/trickery, which was written to confuse the faith of both Christianity and Islam.  This is not an inspired book.  Please don't allow yourself to be deceived into thinking otherwise.  For your benefit, I offer you the following evidence:

The Gospel of Barnabas is an apocryphal gospel. That is, it is a life of Jesus purportedly written by a first-hand observer that is at variance with the picture(s) presented in the Bible. However, it is unique among apocrypha in that it is a Muslim gospel; that is, it presents Jesus as a human prophet, not the son of God, and as a forerunner of Muhammad. According to western scholarship, it is a fourteenth-century forgery, extant now only in Spanish and Italian manuscripts, but even among scholars there is disagreement as to whether or not some some of the material contained in the book is older. The Gospel has been picked up by some modern Muslims, though, as an authentic and ancient record of events, and there are many different printed versions available from various Muslim publishing houses, all based heavily on the version by the Raggs presented here. It must be stressed, however, that belief in this Gospel is in no way an article of Islamic faith, and this site is not the place to discuss either the authenticity of the book or how widespread belief in or even knowledge of it is in the Islamic world. A search on Google will turn up dozens of pages and even entire sites devoted to discussion of the Gospel of Barnabas from all manner of perspectives�Christian, Muslim, and scholarly�to which sites we must defer for discussion of the topic. Regardless of the provenance of the document, it is an interesting read, similar to the many religious romances of the Mediterranean world, such as the apocryphal acts of the apostles (located here at the Noncanonical homepage) and the books of sacred history from the east, a few of which are located here at sacred-texts.  (For futher information, go to the attached link)  http://www.sacred-texts.com/isl/gbar/index.htm

And another very good site:

The "Gospel of Barnabas" in recent research

This article will deal with the following subjects in paragraphs of unequal length:

• Summary
• Preface
• Introduction

1. Forgeries as a cultural danger. Dr Grafton, Princeton.
2. The Gospel of Barnabas compared with other forgeries.
3. Barnabas among other "new" gospels
4. A Spanish origin? Dr E.Garcia Gomez and Dr.M.de Epalza.
5. A Morisco author? Dr L.F.Bernab�, Alicante.
6. The Prophet Muhammad as the Messiah? Dr.G.A.Wiegers, Leiden.
7. Worldwide reception. Dr C.Schirrmacher, Bonn.
8. Intermezzo on the classification of Barnabas studies.
9. A Samaritan author? Prof.J.Bowman, Australia.
10. An Ebionite source? R.Blackhirst, Australia.
11. Barnabas, more authentic? Maulana Mawdudi, Lahore.
12. Fourfold yet one.

• Footnotes

Summary

In the first sections of this article the Author shows how the GB in almost every respect carries the characteristics of other literary forgeries. He further describes how the Spanish scholar Luis Bernab�, preceded by De Epalza and followed by Wiegers, precisely locates the origin of the GB within a series of Morisco forgeries of "early Christian texts" in Granada in the 16th century. The Author dismisses new efforts to discover an early Christian basic text within the present GB. He concludes with a survey of the reception of the GB in mainly islamist circles. As one way out of the predicament he suggests a mutual upgrading of the esteem for each others Scriptures.

Preface

This article continues the debate about the early Christian or 17th century Morisco origins of this pseudo-gospel which began in previous issues of Islamochristiana [J.Slomp, "The Gospel in dispute" no.4, 1978 pp.67-112, and M.de Epalza, "Le milieu hispano-moresque de l'Evangile islamisant de Barnab� (XVI-XVIIe s.) no.8, 1982, pp.159-183]. A number of new studies and translations justify a survey of recent research. There are for the author two major concerns at stake: (1) intellectual credibility and (2) the apologetic use against christianity made of this gospel mainly in islamist circles. Removal of this obstacle will hopefully be beneficial for dialogue. What follows represents therefore not merely a description of recent research but also a continuation of the argument I have been involved in since 1973.

Introduction

The so-called Gospel of Barnabas (abbreviated in this article with the capital letters GB; GBI= the Italian, GBS the Spanish text, etc...) is a forgery by all definitions. I quote by way of example the following definition from the article "Literary forgery" in the Encyclopaedia Britannica: "A forgery is essentially a piece of work created or modified with an intention to deceive" (Fn01). The 1907 critical edition of this gospel by Lonsdale and Laura Ragg established this fact with such force of conviction that it had "the effect of a death-blow to scholarly regard in the West" (Fn02). That was the reason why their critical edition went further unnoticed in Western theological scholarship, though copies of it remained on the shelves of libraries and were never removed, destroyed or hidden, as some Muslim polemists have claimed.

But ninety years later we have to admit that the polemical interest in this spurious gospel in some Muslim circles continues unabated. Within the context of this polemical interest, resulting in a number of new translations with often very prejudiced introductions, arguments against its authencity have not yet been taken seriously. The unwillingness to do so may partly be understood, though not excused, by the fact that these arguments were proffered by missionaries and clergymen who, in the view of these Muslim polemists were the successors of the old anti-Islamic Christian controversialists and apologists of the ninenteenth century. They failed to see that missionaries like Prof.Dr.H.Bergema, Dr.W.F.Campbell, Dr.W.H.T.Gairdner, Fr.Dr.Jacques Jomier and myself had no other interest but getting this stumbling block out of the way in order to commence dialogues and establish good relations and cooperation with Muslims for the sake of peaceful coexistence (Fn03).

http://www.chrisl*ges.de/barnarom.htm

This forgery can be obtained from The Vatican, but is mostly of value to theologians and scholars, and you would have to order it.  However, if you would be so interested as to want to research it for yourself, you may do so:

Bibliographic record

Uniform title : Evangelium Bartholomaei. Title : Fragments grecs et latine de l'�vangile de Barth�lemy. Publication : Paris, J. Gabalda, Date of publication : 1913. Physical description : 78 p. 25 cm. Note : Extrait de la Revue biblique, avril-juillet 1913". In testa al front.: Dom Andr� Wilmart O.S.B. et Eug�ne Tisserant".  Language : Frantais Date of record : 940919 http://www.vaticanlibrary.vatlib.it/BAVT/home.asp?LANGUAGE=e ng&DPT=gen   I will always be glad to help you in any way I possibly can....but I sincerely hope you do not allow yourself to be deceived by this false gospel...false to Christians and Muslims alike. God's Peace.

The best way to respond to a question on the Trinity is to use an example that people can understand, as Jesus did with his parables.

The Trinity is like the Sun.  God the father is the Sun.  The Holy Spirit is the warmth that comes from the Sun.  Jesus Christ is the light that you see from the Sun.  You wouldn't say that there was more than one Sun, though, because you see only one Sun.  That would be irrational.

Belief in the Trinity is available to Christians because of the different ways that God has manifested himself to us.  We know of God the Father through Abraham.  We know of the Holy Spirit because it descended upon the Apostles in Acts.  Christ made it known to them that this would happen.  We know of Jesus Christ as God because he said, when he was asked,"Are you the Christ,^[f] the Son of the Blessed One?"

62"I am," said Jesus. "And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven."

The Son of Man was a reference for the savior of the Jews.  Christ says the he will be sitting at the right hand of God.  The pharisees immediately used this as a CLEAR indication of blasphemy - Jesus was making himself equal to God.

To me, it seems as though Muslims would have to reject Jesus by his very own admission - he believed he was worthy to sit at the right hand of Allah.  He forgave sins, though the Pharisees told him that only God can forgive sins.  Jesus replies that it is not he who forgives but the one who sent him, and yet how many prophets forgive sins?  How many prophets cure the sick, heal the blind, and prophesize their own deaths?