Søren Kierkegaard’s conceptual appropriation of biblical characters in his edifying discourses

Abstract

Søren Kierkegaard’s (1813 – 1855) thought works with the stylistic articulation between form and content. For his philosophy of existence, “what” is said about the existing being must be necessarily articulated with the “how” it is said. Through an indirect communication of the becoming of a self – the most important task in existence – Kierkegaard criticizes the philosophical and doctrinaires’ religious systems. For that, he will use linguistic figures, humor, irony, pseudonyms, and biblical characters as subjective models. The scope of this paper is to analyze specifically how this appropriation of biblical characters is made in two of his edifying discourses. In the first moment, we will expose the religious anthropology upon which Kierkegaard edifies that existential movement of becoming a self and overcoming sin and despair through a leap of faith. Then, we will analyze how Kierkegaard appropriates the biblical characters (Job and the Woman who was a Sinner) to, less than explain them, to provide subjective models of the leap of faith in a way it can be finally appropriated by the reader in her own existential movement.