God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question--Why We Suffer by HarperOne

	Title: God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question--Why We Suffer Purchase Item Manufacturer: HarperOne List Price: $25.95 Our Price: $15.47
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God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question--Why We Suffer by HarperOne Chasing After the Wind
During a homily one Saturday, the Priest said that people should have belief and faith even if there is suffering in the world because God does not cause suffering...people do. After reading Mr. Ehrman's "God's Problem", it helped me to clarify several issues not only about the existence of a God, but also as to why people suffer in the first place. Mr. Ehrman presents several answers to this in the Bible. The first is that people suffer because they sinned, and their suffering is a punishment. In most of the Torah this is the prevalent view, but in the later part of the Jewish classical era, that thinking changed as seen Job and Ecclesiastes. Of course, during the early Christian era, the reason why people suffer is that this world is temporal, and for your suffering you will be granted riches in heaven. In this book, Mr. Ehrman refutes every one of these arguments, but does not cover any new ground. Instead, at the end, he throws up his hands and gives the explanation in Ecclesiastes that it is all 'chasing after the wind.'
God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question--Why We Suffer by HarperOne Another well thoughout book by Bart Ehrman
Like any book on religion, this has created many opinion as shown by the review. I think Bart Ehrman achieved his goal of giving the various Biblical explanations of why is there suffering. For a thinking Christine, this subject has been troubling. I think any thinking Christian should read this book. I do not think this book will appeal to the Bible Church Christian who believe the Bible is the Word of the Lord.
God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question--Why We Suffer by HarperOne Reading this book was a form of suffering for me
Ehrman's "Misquoting Jesus" (2005) was one of the best books I ever read; however, "Peter Paul and Mary" (2006) was clearly a worthy though failed effort and "Truth and Fiction in the DaVinci Code" (2004) was a real stinker. So it is with some interest that I picked up his most recent book "God's Problem." Unfortunately, Ehrman adopts several conventions in this book that I find irritating. There is much too much personal information here, and none of it adds to the topic. In addition, Ehrman tends to repeat himself far beyond normal conventions - after a point is highlighted by one or two examples, do we need to have three to five more? Then there is the fact that the book seems to be taken from lecture notes (at one point he actually writes - "I'll say a few words about that in a moment"), and I think that the ingredients of a good lecture are not necessarily the same as a good paper or book. Putting these irritants aside for a moment, Ehrman promises to examine the issue of suffering in the light of an all powerful and benevolent God. It's the stuff of first year philosophy courses, but Ehrman promises to provide a scholarly historical account of how this issue has been discussed over thousands of years. The promise is not kept. Instead we get 200+ pages of rambling about this or that suffering and this or that verse from the Old Testament, or worse still, more biographical information about Ehrman, his family, his students, his neighbors, etc. I kept going back to the Table of Contents to see where I was and to see where I was supposed to be going, but even here there was no sense of order. Which isn't to say that aperiodically there aren't some gems thrown into the mix. But these are few and far in between. And there are just as many clunkers, as when, for example, Ehrman claims that "later Christians thought that [second Isaiah] words about the suffering servant were to be taken messianically...(p. 83)" That's a gross simplification, and I certainly would have welcomed here some details about the historical evolution of this concept in the first 300 years of the first millennium. This association clearly was not present in all the gospels nor in all the various sects of early Christianity. Moreover, the analogy is false. If one really reads second Isaiah and the description of the suffering servant, you'll see that Jesus is a very poor model. Yet the topic would certainly have been more to the point than many of Ehrman's side stories and endless repetitions of forms of suffering. This book will appeal to some people, but for me, personally, it was just another example of suffering.
God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question--Why We Suffer by HarperOne Interview with Ehrman about God's Problem
Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R1HM6XR2U781DP Hey folks, I interviewed Dr. Ehrman about his book God's Problem and thought ya'll might find it interesting. Stacey Cochran
God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question--Why We Suffer by HarperOne And end to suffering?
There is a word that needs to be in this book, but Ehrman avoids it entirely. That word is heaven. How could Ehrman write a book accusing God of having no answer to the suffering on this earth, without discussing the very answer that God has given? At the very least, it makes for an uneven argument. Instead, he mentions only hell, which he describes as "baking in fire that never ends" (p 88). Ehrman finds many things to complain about, and explores the Old Testament as if every single word was meant to be read without a shred of intelligence, but with a dull literacy. He opines bitterly on his childhood, mentioning how he had to pray for thanks for his meals, while many on Earth starve. He thinks that saying thank you is not proper since not everyone has food. This is simply not logical. I can manage to be thankful for things given to me, while still helping those that are less fortunate. Frankly, this book reads as an attack, not a cogent argument. Ehrman manages to only mention negative biblical stories (or what he deems to be negative)and the horrors of human suffering, while avoiding the positive. He ends his book with ideas on how to end suffering and make the world a better place, the stereotypical things that are, actually, covered in the book he so despises, the bible - Luke 6:31 "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"
God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question--Why We Suffer by HarperOne Product Description
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.