Abstract:
Certain social–political conditions may lead the writers to use indirect ways to express their thoughts، for example، reporting them as the words of others in a different time and place. This is what happened for Jalal Al Ahamad، in a preface، titled as the “Letter by Saint Paul to the Writers”، to the second edition of “Zan-e Ziadi” (unwanted woman)، a collection of his short stories. The letter is something made by Jalal himself not as seemingly claimed by Saint Paul. It was in fact an expression of objection to Parviz Natel Khanlari who had joined the palace folks، detaching himself from the circle of the intellectuals oppositions to Pahlavi regime. This study becomes of special necessity when we see that this letter has been treated as a true text، not as a poetic technique by Jala، as many researchers did in their references to it in their works. The purpose of the present article is to explore the motives behind inventing this letter، its consequences، and to argue why it is fake، so that we can stop the young generation getting mislead in this regard. The argumentation is done based on the text itself، and the comments by Jalal’s contemporaries، i.e. intra-textual an extra- textual studies.
Machine summary:
In the introduction he wrote for the translation of the Gospel of Barnabas, by quoting the content of his relative (Jalal) from the book "The Excessive Woman," he came to believe that: "The talented writer Mr. Jalal Al-e Ahmad, in the collection of articles 'The Excessive Woman,' has pointed out a version of the Gospel of Barnabas that he saw with his priest friend, and to ensure his livelihood is not jeopardized, he has concealed its name under the title 'Paul the Apostle's Letter to the Scribes' and says himself: The writer of these lines...
In addition to these two versions [of the Gospel of Barnabas], two other versions have also been mentioned: one is a version said to exist in the Tokyo Library in Japan (Tofighi, 25 - 26, quoted from Maktab-e Islam Magazine, Year 11, No. 1: 45 - 46) and the other is a version that Jalal Al-e Ahmad mentioned at the beginning of the short story collection 'The Excessive Woman.
The Truth of the Matter Neither did Paul the Apostle have a fourteenth letter to the scribes; nor has a rare version of the Gospel of Barnabas existed with Al-Ahmad's Nestorian friend, nor has a translation from Syriac into Persian been carried out by Jalal and his friend!
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