Bart D. Ehrman
Hardcover | Pages: 304 pages Rating: 3.92 | 4996 Users | 343 Reviews
Identify Books Supposing God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question - Why We Suffer
| Original Title: | God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question—Why We Suffer |
| ISBN: | 0061173975 (ISBN13: 9780061173974) |
| Edition Language: | English |
Narrative Concering Books God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question - Why We Suffer
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 sin
The 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 God
Ecclesiastes: suffering is the nature of things, so just accept it
All apocalyptic texts in both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament: God will eventually make right all that is wrong with the world
For 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.
Details Based On Books God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question - Why We Suffer
| Title | : | God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question - Why We Suffer |
| Author | : | Bart D. Ehrman |
| Book Format | : | Hardcover |
| Book Edition | : | Special Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 304 pages |
| Published | : | February 19th 2008 by HarperOne |
| Categories | : | Religion. Nonfiction. Philosophy. Christianity. Atheism. Theology. History |
Rating Based On Books God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question - Why We Suffer
Ratings: 3.92 From 4996 Users | 343 ReviewsWrite-Up Based On Books God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question - Why We Suffer
I heard Bart Ehrman speak on the radio. He teaches in Chapel Hill. He was speaking about how there is nothing redemptive in the suffering of parents who lost a child in an auto accident. He said this on the radio just as I was driving by the house where a friend of my son lived--he was an only child killed in a car accident a few years ago. I had to buy the book. I was also struck by his openness and understanding about faith--he is not writing from a position of antagonism.As I read the book, IA bit windy and unnecessarily verbose, mostly by way of redundancy. But overall good. Great finishing line, "just because we don't have the answer to suffering doesn't mean that we cannot have a response to it." Go ye and do likewise.
Discusses the various, sometimes contradictory, ways in which the Bible explains the existence and meaning of suffering. The author, no longer a believer, explores the reasons behind these explanations being formulated in their own time and evaluates their (in)adequacies generally and for thinking people today. His material on apocalyptic explanations and figures, including Jesus and Paul, was especially interesting to me.
This book is part personal spiritual memoir and part biblical analysis. It comes across as a rambling lecture by a bible professor who likes to tell stores about himself and expound on world history in addition to discussing the biblical subject at hand. The combination kept my interest while providing an educational experience.Mr. Ehrman provides a thorough review of Biblical views of evil and suffering that includes both the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible) and the New Testament. He uses easy to
Ehrman grew up a conservative Christian, breaking with the faith as a result, he says, of serious biblical study and of the theodicy problem. Not having had such a background, I look at the matter as an outsider, trying to understand how many Christians, Moslems, Jews and Zoroastrians attempt to reconcile human suffering with their notions of a Creator. As ever, Ehrman is a pleasure to read, his exposition of biblical theodicies both sensitive and clear. I do think, however, that he leaves out
I enjoyed this book. The author looks at a question none of us enjoys thinking of - why is there such overwhelming suffering in the world? Suffering comes in many forms, crimes, thuggery, personal oppression, wars, mudslides, tsunamis, mob mentality and genocide. The 21st Century American mind finds it hard to comprehend the scope of suffering in the world and in history. Outside of personal tragedies involving disease and accidents, much of our exposure to suffering comes from television,
Now that I have finished reading God's Problem, I see that the entire work serves as an apology for why Bart Ehrman can no longer believe in the Christian faith. Ehrman, a fundamentalist born-again Christian, feels hurt and betrayed that the Bible is contradictory. Instead of seeing scripture as a collection of different people's attempts to make sense of God, (which is how I like to look at it), he points out its failure to present a cohesive answer to the question of why suffering exists. He
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