This morning, minding my own business, I was surfin' the internet. On abcnews.com, I saw an interesting story: Story of Jesus Through Iranian Eyes. Here's the lede:

A new movie in Iran depicts the life of Jesus from an Islamic perspective. "The Messiah," which some consider as Iran's answer to Mel Gibson's "Passion of the Christ," won an award at Rome's Religion Today Film Festival, for generating interfaith dialogue.

The article is an interview with the filmmaker. In the interview, the filmmaker mentions the Gospel of Barnabas several times as source material, as containing information that is confirmed in the Koran. Here's a quote from the filmmaker about the ending of the movie:

I thought, the Christians, when they see it, it'll be important for them. [In the Koran] God says, emphatically, he was not crucified. Somebody was crucified in his stead. In the Gospel of Barnabas, there are explications of this. The majority of [Muslims] say the one who betrayed Jesus [was crucified]. (abcnews.com)

I knew of the Gospel of Barnabas but have not read it, so I headed to Schneemelcher's NT Apocrypha. I've read the first volume, but Barnabas didn't ring a bell. And I couldn't find it in the table of contents. After searching the index in vol 2, I found this on vol 1 p. 85:

The Gospel of Barnabas, handed down in Italian and Spanish. It was already known in the 18th century (Tolland), but has received more detailed attention only in recent times. This gospel is a work of the 16th century, and evidently belongs in the area of the history of the Moriscoes. It is very doubtful that older material (of Jewish Christian origin) is included in it.
...
These two texts [the other text is the Arabic Gospel of John] are examples of the production of works which are indeed escribed as gospels and which are also interesting sources for the period of their origin, but do not belong in a collection of early Church apocrypha. (Schneemelcher, trans. R.Mcl.Wilson, vol 1 p. 85)

This is very interesting, because the filmmaker relied on the Gospel of Barnabas heavily. What the filmmaker says almost has an Ehrmanian vibe to it (but I won't go there ... ):

If you listen to what Jesus said, Jesus talked about the Prophet Mohammad, many, many times. And it was eliminated in the Gospels and the Bibles that [made it through] history. In 325, the Council of Nice was out to destroy all the other Gospels. One of those Gospels was the Gospel of Barnabas, which I used in great detail. (abcnews.com)

This charge (that Nicea eliminated a Gospel of Barnabas from the canon) is dealt with nicely in an article, from Vox Evangelica, by F.P. Cotterell, on the contents of the Gospel of Barnabas (with thanks to Rob Bradshaw for putting this stuff online so it's available at times like these).

What I do next will most likely turn Jim West's insides green. I'm linking to the Wikipedia article on the Gospel of Barnabas because it's actually good. If you want to be familiar with the issues, you should at least skim it -- particularly if you're a pastor and want to be prepared for when this question comes up. (Hey, it's getting close to easter, all of the whacko stories will be in the news shortly). If you're only going to read one of those links, read Cotterell's article. It's worth it, particularly if you think folks will ask you questions about this sort of thing over the next week.

Bottom line: It appears as if the filmmaker got it backwards. Read the F.P. Cotterell article for the details.