Derrida's Rejection of Logos Theology

What is it about?

This chapter analyses the emergence in the late Second Temple period of the hypostatised Name, personified as an independent being, which, while finding its definitive expression in early Christian writings, is also present in several other textual groups. The common theme throughout all these areas is that the Name (the Tetragrammaton YHWH in Hebrew, or Kyrios in Greek) is a virtual second God, the ‘firstborn’ and handmaid to creation, but also that aspect of God which is present in the world and allows for human- divine relationship. This quite blunt ontological reading of nominalism however has some stark consequences for theology. Derrida’s philosophical musing on apophatic theology will be used to demonstrate why this strand was ultimately rejected by the emerging Rabbinate.

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