Mystery and the Problem of Election in Judaism and Christianity

Abstract:In the early Common Era, followers of Jesus approached their contradictory truth claims by arguing that God's nature is enveloped in mysterion, and is ultimately unknowable. Rabbinic writers, however, treated their own truth claims through the lens of sod, a word that denoted a secret body of knowledge that was hidden from most but accessible to some. In the wake of the Enlightenment, and particularly after the Second Vatican Council produced Nostra Aetate in 1965, Jewish theologians have begun to engage with Catholic theology, and in particular with the idea of how mystery can be activated as a meaningfully Jewish category that addresses contradictions related to the claim of Jewish election.