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THE TIME THAT REMAINS

Stanford University Press

Contents

Acknowledgments and Translator's Note..................................ix The First Day Paulos doulos christou Iesou..........................1In memoriam: Jacob Taubes..............................................3Paul's Language........................................................3Methodos...............................................................5The Ten Words..........................................................6Paulos.................................................................7On the Good Use of Gossip..............................................8Doulos.................................................................12Talmud and Corpus iuris................................................14Christou Iesou, 15 Proper Names........................................16 The Second Day Kletos...............................................19Beruf..................................................................19Vocation and Revocation................................................23Chresis................................................................26Klesis and Class.......................................................29As If..................................................................35Impotential............................................................37Exigency...............................................................39The Unforgettable......................................................39Parable and Kingdom....................................................42 The Third Day Aphorismenos..........................................44Pharisee...............................................................45The Divided People.....................................................47The Cut of Apelles.....................................................49Remnant................................................................53The All and the Part...................................................55 The Fourth Day Apostolos............................................59Nabi...................................................................60Apocalyptic............................................................62Operational Time.......................................................65Kairos and Chronos.....................................................68Parousia...............................................................69Millenary Kingdom......................................................72Typos..................................................................73Recapitulation.........................................................75Memory and Salvation...................................................77The Poem and Rhyme.....................................................78 The Fifth Day Eis euaggelion theou..................................88Eis....................................................................88Euaggelion.............................................................88Plerophoria............................................................91Nomos..................................................................91Abraham and Moses......................................................93Katargein..............................................................95Astheneia..............................................................97Aufhebung..............................................................99Degree Zero............................................................101State of Exception.....................................................104The Mystery of Anomia..................................................108Antichrist.............................................................111 The Sixth Day (Eis euaggelion theou)................................113Oath...................................................................113Deditio in fidem.......................................................115Berit..................................................................117Gratuitousness.........................................................119The Two Covenants......................................................121Gift and Grace.........................................................123Faith Divided..........................................................124Belief In..............................................................126Nominal Sentence.......................................................127The Word of Faith......................................................129Performative...........................................................131Performativum fidei....................................................134The Nearness of the Word...............................................136 Threshold or Tornada.................................................138Citation...............................................................138Image..................................................................141Jetztzeit..............................................................143Appendix: Interlinear Translation of Pauline Texts.....................147References.............................................................187Index of Names.........................................................195

Chapter One

Paulos doulos christou Iesou

First and foremost, this seminar proposes to restore Paul's Letters to the status of the fundamental messianic text for the Western tradition. This would seem a banal task, for no one would seriously deny the messianic character of the Letters. And yet, this is not self-evident, since two thousand years of translation and commentary coinciding with the history of the Christian church have literally cancelled out the messianic, and the word Messiah itself, from Paul's text. Not that one should conclude that there was something like a premeditated strategy of neutralizing messianism, but anti-messianic tendencies were doubtlessly operating within the Church as well as the Synagogue, at various times and in diverse ways; nevertheless, the problem raised here touches on more essential matters. For reasons that will become clear over the course of the seminar, a messianic institution-or rather, a messianic community that wants to present itself as an institution-faces a paradoxical task. As Jacob Bernays once observed with irony, "to have the Messiah behind you does not make for a very comfortable position" (Bernays, 257). But to have him perennially ahead of you can also, in the end, be discomforting.

In both cases, we are confronted with an aporia that concerns the very structure of messianic time and the particular conjunction of memory and hope, past and present, plenitude and lack, origin and end that this implies. The possibility of understanding the Pauline message coincides fully with the experience of such a time; without this, it runs the risk of remaining a dead letter. The restoration of Paul to his messianic context therefore suggests, above all, that we attempt to understand the meaning and internal form of the time he defines as ho nyn kairos, the "time of the now." Only after this can we raise the question of how something like a messianic community is in fact possible.

In this vein, one could say that a kind of subterranean solidarity had existed between the Church and the Synagogue in presenting Paul as the founder of a new religion. All...