Derrida's Bible

'This valuable volume represents a helpful shift of focus of current discussions of 'Derrida and religion' to 'Derrida and the Bible,' to the way in which this scrupulously close micro-reader of texts reads and helps us read Biblical texts, the assembled conglomerate of which is what is meant by Derrida's Bible. The collection shows superbly how 'the Bible' (like 'Plato'), as a single overarching theological unity or an enabling ecclesiastical authorization, is exploded by a close-even 'literalist'-reading which releases an avalanche of metaphors, puns, competing theologies, heterogeneities, multiple layers of cut and paste authorship, good news and bad, awash in problems of interpretation and translation-in short, everything that Derrida predicts a 'text' (a 'scripture') would be. Yvonne Sherwood has produced an important collection for which everyone, readers of Derrida and readers of the Bible, will be grateful.' - John D. Caputo, Watson Professor of Religion, Syracuse University

'Readers who imagine they already know what Derrida's Bible amounts to - a transcendental signified cast down to earth, Lucifer-like, here; gleeful greasing of the higher rungs of a Jacob's ladder there - will be pleasantly surprised by this collection. The Derrida of the title is, for the most part, 'later' Derrida, increasingly irreducible to deconstruction, and certainly to deconstruction-by-numbers; and the readings of biblical texts showcased within are, at their best, correspondingly nuanced, surprising, and consequential.' - Stephen D. Moore, Professor of New Testament, The Theological School, Drew University, author of Mark and Luke in Poststructuralist Perspectives: Jesus Begins to Write and Poststructuralism and the New Testament: Derrida and Foucault at the Foot of the Cross

'This valuable volume represents a helpful shift of focus of current discussions of 'Derrida and religion' to 'Derrida and the Bible,' to the way in which this scrupulously close micro-reader of texts reads and helps us read Biblical texts, the assembled conglomerate of which is what is meant by Derrida's Bible. The collection shows superbly how 'the Bible' (like 'Plato'), as a single overarching theological unity or an enabling ecclesiastical authorization, is exploded by a close-even 'literalist'-reading which releases an avalanche of metaphors, puns, competing theologies, heterogeneities, multiple layers of cut and paste authorship, good news and bad, awash in problems of interpretation and translation-in short, everything that Derrida predicts a 'text' (a 'scripture') would be. Yvonne Sherwood has produced an important collection for which everyone, readers of Derrida and readers of the Bible, will be grateful.' - John D. Caputo, Watson Professor of Religion, Syracuse University

'Readers who imagine they already know what Derrida's Bible amounts to-a transcendental signified cast down to earth, Lucifer-like, here; gleeful greasing of the higher rungs of a Jacob's ladder there - will be pleasantly surprised by this collection. The Derrida of the title is, for the most part, 'later' Derrida, increasingly irreducible to deconstruction, and certainly to deconstruction-by-numbers; and the readings of biblical texts showcased within are, at their best, correspondingly nuanced, surprising, and consequential.' - Stephen D. Moore, author of Mark and Luke in Poststructuralist Perspectives: Jesus Begins to Write and Poststructuralism and the New Testament: Derrida and Foucault at the Foot of the Cross