Gods Problem, Bart D. Ehrman
Gods Problem, Bart D. Ehrman
2 Rating(s)
List: $24.99 | Sale: $17.50
Club: $12.49

God's Problem

Author: Bart D. Ehrman

Narrator: L.J. Ganser

Unabridged: 10 hr 21 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: HarperAudio

Published: 02/19/2008


Synopsis

In times of questioning and despair, people often quote the Bible to provide answers. Surprisingly, though, the Bible does not have one answer but many ""answers"" that often contradict one another. Consider these competing explanations for suffering put forth by various biblical writers: The prophets: suffering is a punishment for sinThe book of Job, which offers two different answers: suffering is a test, and you will be rewarded later for passing it; and suffering is beyond comprehension, since we are just human beings and God, after all, is GodEcclesiastes: suffering is the nature of things, so just accept itAll apocalyptic texts in both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament: God will eventually make right all that is wrong with the worldFor renowned Bible scholar Bart Ehrman, the question of why there is so much suffering in the world is more than a haunting thought. Ehrman's inability to reconcile the claims of faith with the facts of real life led the former pastor of the Princeton Baptist Church to reject Christianity. In God's Problem, Ehrman discusses his personal anguish upon discovering the Bible's contradictory explanations for suffering and invites all people of faith—or no faith—to confront their deepest questions about how God engages the world and each of us.

About Bart D. Ehrman

Bart D. Ehrman is one of the most renowned and controversial Bible scholars in the world today. He is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and is the author of more than twenty books, including the New York Times bestsellers How Jesus Became God; Misquoting Jesus; God’s Problem; Jesus, Interrupted; and Forged. He has appeared on Dateline NBC, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, CNN, History, and top NPR programs, as well as been featured in TIME, the New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, and other publications. He lives in Durham, North Carolina. Visit the author online at www.bartdehrman.com.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Paul on June 23, 2012

Updated with a big quotation from an essay by Ron Rosenbaum added at the bottom for those interested. **** Disclaimer : I just reread this review and it's very disrespectful to the topic at hand and portrays complex ideas in a crude cartoonlike and smirky way. There's a celebrity death match between G......more

Goodreads review by Anne on October 19, 2024

God's Problem. <--is it, though? I didn't read this to see if Ehrman could answer the question as to whether or not God allows suffering for a purpose, what that purpose is, and whether or not that means God actually exists. That's one of those unanswerable things. A choose your own adventure story t......more

Goodreads review by Nandakishore on November 10, 2019

Well, as an atheist, it was a foregone conclusion that I would agree with the author that suffering cannot be explained away in religious terms. (For me, there is no explanation needed also, as I consider the whole universe guided by random chance.) The question was whether I would like the book - a......more

Goodreads review by Brian on September 29, 2021

To me, this seems like the most productive critique of the Bible I've seen -- a survey of all that the Bible says on the meaning of suffering. Ehrman examines the various different explanations offered in the Bible texts: that suffering happens as a punishment for sin (Deuteronomy, the prophets); th......more