Jim, I'm far away from home at the moment and have very limited time on this machine for the next week, so I'm afraid I won't be able to continue the discussion concerning the possible influences of Paul and the Midrash on JD (and I do think I misunderstand the line as you were drawing it, I'm afraid). In any case, to discuss such things properly, it would of course be necessary to turn to specific texts and specific passages and I do not have my books at the moment (particularly, it seems to me, a look at "Circumfession" and at "The Force of Law" would be most interesting here and would pose, I think, a formidable challenge to your thesis conserning influence and the establishment of value... Derrida's writing and rewriting on the work of the Hebraic scholar and creative writer Edmond Jabes would also be to the point). I would enjoy discussing all of this further, off list of course, when I had the texts at hand and could cite the language specifically. I certainly would not want to enter into any too general and largely irrrelevant discussion that uses terms like "postmodernism" or "post- structuralism" (words Derrida not only avoids but has written specific warnings about) in the way I have seen them used elsewhere on this list repeatedly, since such terms, used in this vague and collective way, seemto me to be most often trying to gather and elide over a wide body of very different and radically heterogeneous texts by diverse thinkers in many traditions and to group them all under a single rubric and a too convenient and sloppy taxonomy, usually as a way to avoid reading or to hide not having read. I think you'll agree that such genereal discussions tend to lead only to gross caricatures of complex texts that need to be carefullly read with attention to detail. Elsewhere, and another time, I would be delighted to engagein a more careful discussion of these interesting and provocative issues concerning valueand Derrida's writing. And, of course, I'm alwaysup for participating in Writer's Groups and such. I'll send you private mail when I return from my travels after the Holidays. Enjoy the days and nights, --John