Paul Revisited: A Constellation of Alain Badiou’s Discernments on Saint Paul

This study aims to contribute to the ongoing Pauline discourse by presenting Alain Badiou’s infusion of his own thinking of event theory into Pauline thinking of Jesus’ Resurrection and explores a constellation of Alain Badiou’s conceptualization and contemporization of Paul. Badiou’s reading of Paul constitutes a constellation of Paul’s position as a “universalist”, “anti-misogynist”, “anti-philosopher”, “anti-dialectician”, “revolutionist”, “politician”, “militant”, “activist”, “poet-thinker”, “militant artist”, “theoretician”, “analogist”, “inventor”, and “founder”, along with diverse figures pervading his writing in Paul’s context such as Lenin, Mao, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Spinoza, Marx, Mallarme, Dickinson, Picasso, Schoenberg, Lacan, and Cantor. As for the methodology, this study tracks the trajectory in Badiou’s thinking based on events, truth, fidelity, love, and subjectivation, together with relevant Badiouian connections, and traces Badiou’s theoretical framing of Paul. Tracing the cluster of Pauline representations within Badiou’s space of thought offers an alternative understanding of the scope of Paul’s role in Badiou’s criticism of progressive politics in search of a new militant figure and Paul’s enduring influence and relevance within contemporary socio-political discourse.