ABSTRACT
In most contexts, my title is a puzzle, almost humorous, but amongst readers of Derrida it has, I believe, a clearer referent. I wish to jump directly to the key question that concerns not only religious readers of Derrida, but also many other readers: the relation between the formalism of his thinking and the concrete contexts and instances for his thought. At the American Academy of Religion and the Society for Biblical Literature that means: What is the relation of his reflections on religion, on forgiveness, and so on to specific religions, especially to Judaism, and perhaps as especially, to Christianity?1 In other contexts, the question is the relation to the literary texts he interprets, or to specific bodies of law, or to national philosophical schools, and so on. As Philosopher, Derrida has reexamined and recharged the question of the relation of the particular to the concept. Let me collect all of his reflections about concrete contexts under the question of the example and the logic of exemplarity-a logic that I cannot redevelop adequately here. At the end of the paper, I will suggest that engagement with scripture need not be governed by that logic, and indeed, that the particularity encountered in historical research can help disrupt the specific identity of the people who engage in that inquiry, disrupting the temptation to make ourselves an example.
