God's Problem
By Bart D. Ehrman
- Release Date: 2009-10-13
- Genre: Religion & Spirituality
Description
War, disease, natural disasters, abuse, pain, and death – why do we suffer? And if God is loving, all-powerful, and in control, why doesn’t he make it all stop? Surprisingly, the Bible does not have a single answer to these questions.
In God’s Problem, Bart Ehrman, the New York Times bestselling author of Misquoting Jesus, discusses his personal anguish following his discovery that the Bible only provides incoherent and conflicting reasons for human suffering. According to the prophets, suffering is a punishment for sin. Apocalyptic texts promise that God will eventually make all things right. And the Book of Job provides two explanations for suffering: it is both a test, and something beyond comprehension.
While writing this book, Ehrman became so disillusioned by what he discovered, he actually lost his faith.
Bart D. Ehrman chairs the department of religious studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. A leading authority on the early Church and the life of Jesus, he has been featured in Time and has appeared on Dateline NBC, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, CNN, the History Channel, major NPR shows, and other top media outlets. He is the author of twenty books and lives in Durham, N.C.
“[God’s Problem is a] serious inquiry ... Ehrman pursues it with an energy and goodwill that invite further conversation with sympathetic and unsympathetic readers alike. This book neither trivializes its subject nor demonizes those who have a different view of it which is more than can be said for the efforts of those fashionable atheist writers whose major form of argument would seem to be ridicule.” - Stanley Fish in the New York Times
Reviews
A very thoughtful yet biblical book
3By D. TuggleI love books that challenge people to think outside their religious wormholes. This is one of those books. If we could learn to answer the question of suffering without dodging it, the World would be a better place. I too wish that more people would put more thought into why humans suffer instead of just believing what everyone else believes. But as a thinking Christian myself, I don't believe that Almighty God is in control of all things good and bad that happens on the earth anyway. Not saying that he isn't sovereign, but in His sovereignty He has limited himself to operate within the rules that He set up from the beginning. God gave man dominion over the earth, and he couldn't take it back once he gave it because He is God-- He can't lie or be an Indian-giver no matter what Job is recorded to have said. Thus He sent Jesus to die to at least give us some power and authority to make a difference in the world we occupy. So like a US ambassador in communist China, we now have the resources of Heaven available to us and can live in relative safety even with all hell breaking loose around us, but we have to do more. We have to tell our Gov't to intervene in our part of the world in Jesus' name as we are (or should be) ambassadors for the Anointed One who is Jesus, the Son of God whose Kingdom we have become a part of through faith (supposedly).
