Overview

"Abed Azzam offers a fresh interpretation of Nietzsche's engagement with the work of Paul the Apostle, reorienting the relationship between the two thinkers while embedding modern philosophy within early Christian theology. Paying careful attention to Nietzsche's dialectics, Azzam situates the philosopher's thought within the history of Christianity, specifically the Pauline dialectics of law and faith, and reveals how atheism is constructed in relation to Christianity. Countering Heidegger's characterization of Nietzsche as an anti-Platonist, Azzam brings the philosopher closer to Paul through a radical rereading of his entire corpus against Christianity. This approach builds a compelling new history of the West resting on a logic of sublimation, from ancient Greece and early Judaism to the death of God. Azzam discovers in Nietzsche's philosophy a solid, tangible Pauline structure and virtual, fragile Greek content, positioning the thinker as a forerunner of the recent ""return to Paul"" led by Badiou, Agamben, ?i?ek, and Breton. By changing the focus of modern philosophical inquiry from ""Nietzsche and philosophy"" to ""Nietzsche and Christianity,"" Azzam initiates a major challenge to the primacy of Plato in the history of Western philosophy and narrow certainties regarding Nietzsche's relationship to Christian thought."

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Written in a precise and economical style, crystallizing its points with aphoristic clarity, Nietzsche Versus Paul reconstructs a series of Christian moments found throughout the Nietzschean corpus and so reveals a surprisingly consistent, sophisticated, and cunning structure. This contribution goes for beyond the circles of Nietzsche scholarship, where it will certainly be received as a fresh and powerful intervention. Indeed, it is an original conceptualization of atheism, nihilism, secularization, and modernity as well, and will be warmly received by scholars of philosophy and religion, especially, those interested in their intersection. -- Judith Butler, University of California, Berkeley Nietzsche versus Paul is a wonderful, philosophically engaging book, meticulous -- even relentless -- in its argumentation, arresting in its interpretive scope, and dedicated to the surprisingly neglected presence of Christianity in Nietzsche. -- Gil Anidjar, Columbia University A brilliant reconstructive projective which fills a genuine lacuna in recent scholarship in history, philosophy, and theology alike. Nietzsche versus Paul is coherent, well formulated, and of extraordinary importance for all of the larger philosophical and historical discussions which have emerged, surprisingly, to become some of the most pressing 'theory' topics of our time. -- Ward Blanton, University of Kent

Author Information

Abed Azzam teaches philosophy at the University of Potsdam and the University of Marburg and is affiliated with the Institute for Cultural Inquiry in Berlin.

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