„Doppelte Nicht-Identität. Zur Gegenwartsrelevanz des Paulus

The paper discusses four different positions about Saint Paul and the relation between universalism and particularism. These positions share a non-Christian theological approach and the tendency to detract Paul from the Christian tradition. Thereby, the figure of Paul and the relation between universalism and particularism can be released from the long conflict between Christianity and Judaism. In line with Jacob Taubes and a current theological trend (the so called »Fresh Perspective on Paul«), the paper finally argues for supplementing the focus on Paul’s (conflictual) relation to his Jewish origin (a focus shared by the protestant tradition as well as by the currently dominant “New Perspective on Paul”) by giving more attention to Paul’s (no less conflictual) relation to the Roman Empire.The result is an understanding of Paul’s “position” as one of a double non-identity, something that comes surprisingly close to the specific »position« about the relation between particularism and universalism of one among the 20th-century greatest philosophers, namely Jacques Derrida