God's Problem
How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question--Why We Suffer
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4.5 • 36 Ratings
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
One Bible, Many Answers
In God's Problem, the New York Times bestselling author of Misquoting Jesus challenges the contradictory biblical explanations for why an all-powerful God allows us to suffer.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this sometimes provocative, often pedantic memoir of his own attempts to answer the great theological question about the persistence of evil in the world, Ehrman, a UNC Chapel Hill religion professor, refuses to accept the standard theological answers. Through close readings of every section of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, he discovers that the Bible offers numerous answers that are often contradictory. The prophets think God sends pain and suffering as a punishment for sin and also that human beings who oppress others create such misery; the writers who tell the Jesus story and the Joseph stories think God works through suffering to achieve redemptive purposes; the writers of Job view pain as God's test; and the writers of Job and Ecclesiastes conclude that we simply cannot know why we suffer. In the end, frustrated that the Bible offers such a range of opposing answers, Ehrman gives up on his Christian faith and fashions a peculiarly utilitarian solution to suffering and evil in the world: first, make this life as pleasing to ourselves as we can and then make it pleasing to others. Although Ehrman's readings of the biblical texts are instructive, he fails to convince readers that these are indeed God's problems, and he fails to advance the conversation any further than it's already come.
Customer Reviews
Brilliantly argued thesis that the god in the Bible has no control over suffering
The story of Job is a perfect example of God’s impotence. Job is “innocent,” yet allowed to suffer pointlessly, along with the needless death of his ten children. The text is a classic example of how man made Bronze Age religions have so little to say about substantive issues like morality.
A very thoughtful yet biblical book
I 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).