Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- 1 The Joy of Kierkegaard
- 2 Kierkegaard's Canon: The Constitution of the Bible and of the Authorship in Concluding Unscientific Postscript
- 3 The Apostle, the Genius and the Monkey: Reflections on Kierkegaard's ‘The Mirror of the Word’
- 4 Your Wish Is My Command: The Peril and Promise of the Bible as ‘Letter from the Beloved’
- 5 The Lesson of Eternity: The Figure of the Teacher in Kierkegaard's Philosophical Fragments
- 6 Cities of the Dead: The Relation of Person and Polis in Kierkegaard's Works of Love
- 7 Adam's Angest: The Language of Myth and the Myth of Language
- 8 Beyond a Joke: Kierkegaard's Concluding Unscientific Postscript as a Comic Book
- 9 ‘Sarah Is the Hero’: Kierkegaard's Reading of Tobit in Fear and Trembling
- 10 How Edifying Is Upbuilding? Paul and Kierkegaard in Dialogue
- 11 Forgiving the Unforgivable: Kierkegaard, Derrida and the Scandal of Forgiveness
- Bibliography
- Index of Biblical References
- Index of Authors
4 - Your Wish Is My Command: The Peril and Promise of the Bible as ‘Letter from the Beloved’
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- 1 The Joy of Kierkegaard
- 2 Kierkegaard's Canon: The Constitution of the Bible and of the Authorship in Concluding Unscientific Postscript
- 3 The Apostle, the Genius and the Monkey: Reflections on Kierkegaard's ‘The Mirror of the Word’
- 4 Your Wish Is My Command: The Peril and Promise of the Bible as ‘Letter from the Beloved’
- 5 The Lesson of Eternity: The Figure of the Teacher in Kierkegaard's Philosophical Fragments
- 6 Cities of the Dead: The Relation of Person and Polis in Kierkegaard's Works of Love
- 7 Adam's Angest: The Language of Myth and the Myth of Language
- 8 Beyond a Joke: Kierkegaard's Concluding Unscientific Postscript as a Comic Book
- 9 ‘Sarah Is the Hero’: Kierkegaard's Reading of Tobit in Fear and Trembling
- 10 How Edifying Is Upbuilding? Paul and Kierkegaard in Dialogue
- 11 Forgiving the Unforgivable: Kierkegaard, Derrida and the Scandal of Forgiveness
- Bibliography
- Index of Biblical References
- Index of Authors
Summary
Reading Kierkegaard frightens me. No doubt he would regard that as a compliment. After all, no one urges more strongly the importance of the category of offence in any communication of the divine. Yet at times his insistence on scandal seems to be a hostage to seriously disquieting and destructive appropriation of his writing. Take, for instance, the implication of Kierkegaard's metaphor of the Bible as ‘Letter from the Beloved’ in For Self-Examination. The metaphor is used to chide those who distract themselves from obeying the message of the Bible by appealing to critical scholarship, making the specious plea ‘I certainly intend to comply—as soon as the discrepancies are ironed out and the interpreters agree fairly well’ (FSE, 32). This is a conveniently endless undertaking in Kierkegaard's view. So far so good. However, Kierkegaard (of course) takes things further:
Let us not discard the metaphor too soon. Let us assume that this letter from the beloved contained not only an expression of affection, as such letters ordinarily do, but that it contained a wish, something the beloved wished her lover to do. It was, let us assume, much that was required of him, very much; any third party would consider that there was good reason to think better of it, but the lover, he is off at once to fulfil his beloved's wish.
(FSE, 26–27)- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Joy of KierkegaardEssays on Kierkegaard as a Biblical Reader, pp. 43 - 51Publisher: Acumen PublishingPrint publication year: 2012