God’s Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question--Why We Suffer
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Overview
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.
"[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 for the New York Times
"[God's Problem] is a book worth reading even by believers. The author knows his Bible well, and describes the content of the pertinent biblical passages objectively and clearly. And sometimes his agnostic perspective can sharpen the understanding of believers and challenge us to view the Bible and the human condition in a fresh light."—AMERICA
"[An] entrapped invocation of a God who is not believed in, but is nonetheless despised, is what gives the book a rough power...[Ehrman] is a lucid expositor."—THE NEW YORKER
Editorials
From Barnes & Noble
New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman began his career with impeccable Christian credentials, with degrees from Moody Bible Institute, Wheaton College, and Princeton Theological Seminary. Though he had been drawn to biblical studies because of his evangelical beliefs, Ehrman gradually came to doubt claims about Jesus' divinity and resurrection. His 2006 Misquoting Jesus, which enunciated his new conclusions, became a surprise bestseller. In God's Problems, Dr. Ehrman addresses questions about the Bible in a non-dogmatic yet skeptical way.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. (Mar.)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business InformationLibrary Journal
This serious book by a serious scholar will be talked about and cannot be ignored by any collection. Ehrman (religious studies, Univ. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why) is a New York Timesbest-selling author and a familiar media figure in the scholarly discussion of the New Testament. Here, he turns from his usual historical-critical concerns to theological consideration of the problem of suffering: namely, if God is all-powerful and all-loving, how can suffering exist? Ehrman writes in a clear and engaging style, bringing personal reflection and reason to bear on academically sound readings of biblical perspectives on suffering, from both the Old and the New Testament. Ultimately, the book is a very personal statement that will anger some and resonate with others; most important, it will provoke mature consideration of this very important question. For all libraries.
—Darby Orcutt