Abstract

In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus blesses those who “find no scandal” in him. Whatever the word “scandal” might mean in this beatitude, it cannot simply denote our usual sense of shock at flagrantly bad behavior. The scandal that one takes in Christ is the scandal of the Cross and, as such, it has to do with the crucial issues of evil, violence, and suffering, as well as redemption and salvation. The kind of scandal experienced in different ways by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and by Jacques Derrida reading Rousseau.It might come as a surprise to learn that these two thinkers had some important things to say about scandal, but it should come as no surprise that they were drawn to the..