Secret Bible in which 'Jesus predicts coming of Prophet Muhammad' unearthed

[cappsie]

I'm pretty sure this has been disproven and I'm interested in any information regarding this 'old bible' claim:

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A secret Bible in which Jesus is believed to predict the coming of the Prophet Muhammad to Earth has sparked serious interest from the Vatican.
Pope Benedict XVI is claimed to want to see the 1,500-year-old book, which many say is the Gospel of Barnabas, that has been hidden by the Turkish state for the last 12 years.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ed-Turkey.html

Thanks,
Adam.

[Saitaina]

http://msgboard.snopes.com/cgi-bin/u...4;t=000922;p=1

[Furienna]

It would make no sense to make predictions of that the Messiah would be named Muhammed, or even that he would be an Ishmaelite, before the days of Muhammed. Muslims don't believe that Muhammed is the Messiah either. To them, he is "merely" the greatest and ultimate prophet of Islam. So I say that it's a fake.

[A Turtle Named Mack]

The OP's use of the term 'Bible' seems particularly absurd to me. My understanding of the word is that it refers to the accepted canon of writings for a particular religion, which generally has disgnated those writings as those which it believes were divinely inspired by God. It is most commonly used for the Christian Bible, of course, with or without the apocrypha, but one often hears of the Jewish Bible for the Torah and the Talmud, the Moslem Bible for the Koran, etc. There are others that could take the designation, but if a writing is not accepted as canon by any religion, then it seems inappropriate to apply the term 'Bible' to it. Even early writings of Christianity, such as the Gospel of Peter or Nicodemus, which are known to have existed from before the establishment of canon and were considered for inclusion, are not referred to by the term Bible.

[ganzfeld]

I've never heard of the Koran being called "the Moslem Bible". I'm also kind of surprised to see the word "moslem" used in any context since.. I dunno... 1890 . I know there's some controversy over whether it should be considered a dogwhistle term, unintentionally or intentionally derogatory, or just extremely old-fashioned but, in any case, there isn't any good reason to use it. (YMMV, of course.)

[Lainie]

I've never heard anyone call the Koran the "Muslim Bible."

[crescent]

I have. I've heard the Koran referred to as the Muslim bible and the Bhagavad Gita or the Upanishads as the Hindu bible.

I don't think it is a common expression. I mainly remember it from CCD class when I was a kid and from various evangelical Christians I knew in high school and college.

For some, I guess "Holy Book" = "Bible", and referring to another religion's primary faith document as that religion's "bible" is actually an attempt to show a bit of respect to that religion. It's a step up from referring to it as "a book of heathen myths", which I also heard used as an intentionally disrespectful reference the Koran. The people who used that probably never heard of the Gita.

[thorny locust]

I've run into it also; and I also think it's a matter of people being so used to thinking "a faith's holy scriptures" = "Bible" that they think it's accurate and/or being respectful.

I've also run into people who think "church" is a proper term for any place of worship of any faith; as well as some who think that a cross is a generic symbol of holiness that means more or less the same thing to non-Christians as to Christians.

[ganzfeld]

We didn't learn anything about other religions in 10 years of CCD.

[crescent]

Originally Posted by ganzfeld

We didn't learn anything about other religions in 10 years of CCD.

We didn't learn much, mostly just that they existed, a tiny bit about their history* relative ages** and that Islam was gaining adherents faster than Christianity. It was very brief, I think to give some context as to why other religions were wrong and bad the Catholic Church was right and better. Poisoning the well, more or less.

Come to think of it, they might have referred to the Book or Mormon as the Mormon Bible. I can't decide if that would be totally wrong or 1/3 right. I would have to ask a Mormon.

Conversely, CCD at our church was not totally biased - we might have veered from the standard curriculum. In the last few years I took it, our church had a relatively progressive priest (from Italy). He was pretty open about atrocities committed or supported by the church during the Catholic/Protestant wars in Europe and in the conquest and exploitation of the Americas. He allowed alter girls alongside the alter boys. I think he was a bit atypical relative to most Catholic priests.


*Hinduism in India, Buddhism in China, Islam in the middle east, Baptists in the southern U.S., Anglicans in England, Mormons in Utah and in that other church across the street, that's literally as detailed as they got.

**Hinduism and Judism very old, Buddism older than Christianity, Islam newer than Christianity, nothing more.

[ASL]

Originally Posted by ganzfeld

We didn't learn anything about other religions in 10 years of CCD.

I vaguely recall learning about other religions as well as atheism and agnostics. In a "they're not necessarily evil, just wrong and confused" kind of way.

[TomToad]

"Bible" can take on different meanings depending on the context. It can refer to the Christian Holy Book, or generically for any holy writing. It is also used sometime to refer to non-holy writings if the book is deemed authoritative on the subject. "'The Birds of America' is the Audubon Society bible."

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/bible
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bible