Abstract:

This study comparatively examines the centrality of the argument about early authorities’ understanding of scripture within the biblical hermeneutics of Ibn Taymiyyah (d. 728/1328) and Michael Servetus (d. 1553). It concludes that both figures aimed to examine mainstream Christianity through similar ante-Nicene biblical hermeneutics. The topics of this hermeneutics include linguistic analysis, scriptural usage of a term, historical contexts of a term, scriptural harmony, and early authorities’ understanding of scripture. However, they had different interpretations of the whole Christian tradition for two main reasons. First, they had two different faith commitments, namely, Ibn Taymiyyah was a Muslim and Servetus was a Christian. The second reason is their different scopes of examining the Christian tradition when approaching the testimonies of the ante-Nicene fathers, which is understood in this study as fahm al-Salaf. Accordingly, the study argues for three conclusions. First, the logical conclusions of Servetus’s hermeneutics should have led to Joseph Priestley’s concept of God. Second, if Ibn Taymiyyah had access to the writings of the ante-Nicene fathers, then he would have argued for the Ebionites. Third, that a critical question could be presented by Christians to the Muslim audience regarding the divinity of Jesus is the argument from tawātur maʿnawī (thematic recurrent mass transmission).

Keywords: