I've seen a lot of hype about the Gospel of Barnabas in the last 24 hours or so, but the "facts" aren't even remotely congruent. As far as I knew it was wrote in the 16th century (or at least ~400-600 years ago), and everyone is excitedly claiming now that it's ~1500-2000 years old. Tell me if this is the wrong place and I'll move it, but I want to know what really happened HISTORICALLY with the Gospel instead of biased religious opinions and theorising that I've seen so much of today. When was it really wrote, as far as scholars know? By whom? What does it actually really claim? What are the details surrounding it?
I'd like to request specifically for as many sources as possible because of the apparent disconnect between what online blogs and media is trying to hype up and what is actually known for solid fact/academia about this book.
EDIT // Aside from who wrote it, where it was wrote, and when, I also forgot to mention that I heard it was originally wrote in Spanish (and Italian?) but then elsewhere insisted it was wrote in a dialect of Aramaic. Even further through the net someone went so far as to claim that it was actually wrote in gold, and I'm not even entirely sure how that's possible.
TL;DR: Can anyone explain the historical background to this text without contradicting themselves in the next 30 words or less like the media output is?
I haven't read the news you are referring to, but a very closely related question came up quite recently at which time I made some comments. /u/telkanuru's link to the /r/Islam thread is also very spot on.
For an actual refutation and/or clarification of the story that's been in the in the news recently, check out this thread in /r/Islam.
The TL;DR is that the current story is an absurd misrepresentation by the media.
Speaking as a paleographer, many deluxe manuscripts are written in gold ink (there are many techniques for this) on parchment which has been dyed purple. That seems to be the case here.