God’s Problem audiobook

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 God and Satan, a nervous Jewish spokesman, and something called The Lone Bangster. Shakes head.Shrugs.Does not get struck by lightning.Yet!Okay. It could be that I read this book sadistically, having cruel fun watching the poor Christians run around like rats frantically looking for the impossible way out of the trap that they themselves created, which is:-God is omnipotent-God loves us-We live in an ocean of human suffering which laps and lashes at everyone's life. Just take a look at the news. God loves us? You gotta be joking, pal.But I believe I read this book with a bit more compassion. And surprisingly, it turned out the author isn't a Christian either. He was, but he lost his faith. Because of the problem of suffering. And he's not caning Christianity in a mean-minded way, not at all. But he does say that Christianity fails to explain human suffering.THIS JUST IN : GOD NOT OMNIPOTENTThe problem is solved if one of the statements about God is not true. So, perhaps, believers have entirely mistaken the nature of God. O Abstract Creative Force, which art imbued in the very fabric of the material universe, in every quark and photon, hallowed be thy name.Might it be that God was just the bang in the big bang – and that's all? Wham, BANG, thank you ma'am! Who was that masked man? Why that was the Lone Bangster. He rides into pre-time-and-space and creates a new universe and he's gone before anyone can thank him. In this version, the ancients were not wrong to state that there was an original creative and sustaining power, I mean, there was, wasn't there!, but because they couldn't conceptualise in any other way, they gave this power all these human attributes. Mistake! Because the Bang isn't compassionate and loving, the Bang is just the Bang!Bang!Another version in which God is not omnipotent is the GOD VERSUS SATAN : CELEBRITY DEATH MATCHIn this version, very popular with some Christians, they SAY God is omnipotent, but then they say that here, on this earth where we live, he doesn't have power – he's in a perpetual battle with the Adversary – the Evil One, Voldemort – no, sorry, Satan. That's him. So don't blame God for all the suffering on planet Earth, it's Satan what done it, and for some reason, God can't just reach out and swat Satan like one of those fat greenbottle flies, ugh I hate them, no, he has to put up with Satan and we have to strive on earth to fend him (and his little devilettes, they're always coming round trying to seduce us, in their fetching red boots and glitzy hairdos) off, and exorcise him like in The Exorcist when he or a mean old devilkin gets stuck in our psyches (like a clog in a U-bend I suppose). Out, clog, out! In this scenario, God is able to make commando raids on our planet from time to time, and send in some help, such as when he sent in Jesus and the disciples (the spiritual SAS of the first century) but that's all he can do. We're kind of on our own. So this is called the Apocalyptic version. And in fact most New Testament writers believed in that, as did Jesus himself, except for the boots and the hairdos, I made that up. So all human suffering is nothing to do with God. In this version God will be kicking down the door real soon, like a giant supernatural police raid – All right, Satan, up against the wall - YOU'RE BUSTED! - I'm not coming quietly Godddd (pronounced with an insolent sneer) – you're gonna have to come in and get me.- MY PLEASURE! (Whammm!)So really, this apocalyptic version of God is a rewrite of the Greek and Roman view of The Gods, whereby the gods fight and carouse and have a wild time throughout the universe and we humans get caught in the crossfire from time to time. This is where sacrifice and prayer come in. These are two forms of pleading to the gods to a) make it rain and b) please go away and leave us in peace, we can't get any sleep when you're around. You're so scary! Meep, meep!WHY WE SUFFER, OLD TESTAMENT STYLEE1) because you sinned. What, I have malaria and you're saying that it's because I was sinful? Yes, deal with it.The reasoning here is unexpectedly mechanical. Now, we think of a person's religion as being what they believe, but back then it was to do with what they did – i.e. whether they followed all the complex rules, which for the Jews was the Torah. Man, that's a lot of rules. So, you could always tell an Old Testament Jew – your leprosy is because you wore a garment made out of two different types of cloth. If you don't believe me, check it out. It's in Leviticus.So you needed a way of saying sorry that you broke the rules, and hence sacrifice. Now exactly why burning & killing animals was so pleasing to God that he would forgive you is not clear. But that was the way you got right.Later on the idea of the messiah evolved and became strongly associated with the idea of sacrifice, to the point where by the time the gospel writers set down the story of Jesus, they had absorbed the notion that he was in himself the perfect sacrifice for all of mankind's sins. The thinking here is quite complex, or perhaps I mean muddled. Exactly whose sins? And why couldn't God have just forgiven us without all the folderol? I mean, God sends his only begotten son so that he may be a sacrifice to God so God forgives the human race for their poor attitudes to each other and him, and he withholds the punishments they all so richly deserve. Well, this idea has been accepted by all Christians for the last 2000 years so who am I to say it sounds really loopy?2) Redemptive SufferingSimply put, it means that there's always a point to suffering. A silver lining. This is the idea that Dostoyevsky takes a chainsaw to in The Brothers Karamazov. A Biblical example is Joseph, who has brothers who are so mean they sell him into Egyptian slavery, and he suffers for years. But then he becomes powerful in Egypt so that when his brothers and their clans turn up requesting relief from the drought in Israel, he's able to help them. And this is shown as God allowing them to have sold him into slavery to begin with so that they can benefit from his forgiveness later, and lessons can be learned. You can see the idea of God as a puppeteer of humans here. God contrives the whole situation to prove a point. Later on, Exodus says specifically that God "hardens the heart" of Pharoah so that he doesn't listen to Moses and doesn't let the Israelites go until the final plague, in order to prove, once again, a point, i.e, that he is very powerful. What a strange way to go about things. But of course it sounds just like the authors had got the stories already and were back-reading the theology into them. The story of God and Israel in the Old Testament is the tale of an abusive relationship. Israel betrays God and goes a-whoring after Baal, Israel end up in the Accident and Emergency Unit time and time again when God becomes violent; Israel weeps and says sorry but then the whole cycle repeats. It's all there in Kings & Chronicles and throughout the Prophets. God: I brought you froth from bondage in Egypt.Nervous Jewish spokesman : Froth?God : Forth. I meant forth. (Irritably) That was a typo.NJS: Yes, you did that, but, er, I believe you arranged for the bondage to happen in the first place.God : No, no, that was someone else. I brought you forth.NJS: Okay boss, whatever, you know on behalf of the whole tribe, I'd like to say, we adore you.God: Okay then – no more Baal!NJS : Absolutely! Baal (mimes kicking someone's behind) is right out!God : Okay then – I'll have 50 kine, 25 – no, make that another 50 goats, and 25 sheep. Sacrifices to begin a week Friday. Okay?NJS: Oh, oh – that many? I mean – yes, yes, great.God : Okay, we're good then. (Disappears.) And finally, natural disasters! Yay!Alright - I'm glad to say that Mr Ehrman has the same attitude to earthquakes as I do. He's a very affable and readable guy, by the way, and I do recommend this book. So, many Christians like to say - and this explanation of suffering ISN'T in the Bible - that if we didn't have the FREE WILL to choose to sin, we would be robots, and it's because of sin that there's so much suffering. Mr Ehrman - you can almost hear him pulling his hair out here - says - but what about earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes, floods, volcanoes and mudslides? What sin caused all that human grief? His theological students tend to shuffle off gazing at their shoes when he puts that to them. Yes, you can say - at a stretch - that all the genocides were due to human sin. The Holocaust was created by the Nazis. They did it. But one million children died - so even when you accept that human sin comes from our free will you have to accept the notion of millions of completely innocent children victims. (This is what Dostoyevsky rants about.) So that - for me - scuppers the notion of God being in any way loving. Added to the natural disasters, for me that means that, sorry, and all that, but it looks like there's nobody here but us chickens. Correction - us and the BANG!!***ADDENDUMI just read a great essay by Ron Rosenbaum (author of one of my favourite ever books Explaining Hitler) which addresses in anguish and compassion our topic. It's herehttp://chronicle.com/article/The-Nake...but I will quote the last half. He was reading Bob Dylan's unreadable anti-novel "Tarantula" and came across a line which set him off thinking hard :"hitler did not changehistory. hitler WAS history ... " Whoa. Those eight words... In the 10 years I spent writing a 500-page book called Explaining Hitler, not one of the historians, philosophers, artists, or other sages I spoke to or read ever made as white-hot an indictment of humanity as that. An indictment, implicitly, of God as well. In those eight words it seems to me, Dylan is not saying Hitler's evil genius was unique, exceptional. He's saying Hitler represents—embodies—a distillation of all the horrors routinely perpetrated by human civilization. The truth about human nature over the centuries. Human civilization reached its true historical pinnacle—its bloody telos—in Hitler. Human nature is Hitler nature. Just as human history is Hitler history. (And please don't tell me Hitler "lost." Tell that to the six million Jews he killed. Each murder a win for him.) Such an all-encompassing judgment obviously didn't come out of nowhere. It must have come out of long sessions of thought, ones that reach a critical mass in this lightning bolt of dreadful insight. So if this is Dylan's God problem—look upon his works, ye mighty, and sicken—it was time to turn to the second half of the title of my lecture, "Dylan's God Problem—and Ours." It was here that I found myself growing so harsh and unrelenting in tone (I'd written it out before, but tone is everything) that I now feel the need to apologize. At least to one listener. I didn't realize the degree of anger I still carried around, not just at the Holocaust, but at those who could remain complacent and go on with their worship of God as if nothing had happened. "Our God problem," I said, was the abject failure of post-Holocaust Jewish theodicy: The attempt to maintain a belief in a God who hadgiven Hitler free rein to murder. For Jewish scholars and theologians, it seemed to me, post-Holocaust theodicy should be the first, if not only, subject of their study—not a theodicy that reached back to some commentary on some commentary on some commentary on some third-century rabbinic texts rationalizing the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans to somehow explain Jewish misfortune. The failure of contemporary Jewish sages, scholars, and the rabbinate to come up with an adequate explanation for God's silence, God's absence, is scandalous to me, virtually an admission that there is no good explanation. But must we then reject God? It's a fairly important question to spend your academic or seminary life ignoring. It's the elephant, no, the mastodon, in the room. Something most don't want to talk about. Or claim not to be troubled by. I've found myself troubled. I've found myself unable to say the Passover prayer anymore, the one about how God always stretches forth His mighty hand—God the superhero—to save us. This historical lie is an insult to the dead who devoted their lives to belief in God and that prayer—and were cruelly betrayed by both. Not all rabbis and Jewish scholars are so timid. Rabbi Richard Rubenstein, a famous dissenter from the complacent rabbinic orthodoxy, wrote, "Jewish history has written the final chapter in the terrible story of the God of History" (sounding a bit like Dylan's "Hitler WAS history"). And "the pathetic hope of coming to grips with Auschwitz through the framework of traditional Judaism will never be realized." As a cheerful note, he added: "We learned in the crisis we were totally and nakedly alone, that we could expect neither support nor succor from God. ... Therefore, the world will forever remain a place of pain, suffering, alienation, and ultimate defeat." Other scholars, such as Irving Greenberg ("Not to confront is to repeat" Hitler's crime, he wrote in "Cloud of Smoke, Pillar of Fire," his influential essay) and the late Emil Fackenheim (whom I interviewed in Jerusalem), have wanted to preserve a belief in God but at least have had the courage to face the failure of explanation to fit the old religion into the new, evil revelation. But I got carried away during this second half of the lecture. And I disclosed my intellectual—and emotional—distress at the rationalizations of God's role in the Holocaust. What I proceeded to do was ridicule any attempt to maintain that there was some "excuse" for God's absence and silence. The theodicy of the Shas rabbi in Israel, for example, who declared that the Holocaust was God's punishment for European Jews who'd slid away from orthodoxy to secularism. That Hitler was "the rod of God's anger" against them. Obscene. No less obscene than those who claimed the Holocaust was "part of God's plan," perhaps His way of hastening the establishment of a Jewish state. Then there was the argument that it was not God's fault—he just gave man free will to use for good or evil. Which prompts one to ask: Was it not in His power to create a being incapable of choosing mass murder so often? A human nature that didn't include childhood cancers, say, and the genesis of holocausts? Are we not allowed to question His creation in the smoking ruins of the death camps? Or, to alter the tone of the much-ridiculed notion: Is this—this! this hell on earth—the best of all possible worlds an all-powerful God could have created? Then there's the last refuge of theological scoundrels: "It's all a big mystery." It sounds so profound. It's a disguise for willed avoidance. I reserved my greatest contempt for those, including many intellectually "progressive" rabbis who try to get away with the sophistry that "God was in the camps," that God was there in every act of goodness and self-sacrifice the camp inmates showed one another. Doubly obscene. It steals from those brave souls the credit for their selfless acts and gives the credit to an absent God. Virtually robbing their graves for the sake of making God look better. How can these rabbis and scholars justify themselves, intellectually and morally, with their ludicrously inadequate theodicies? Perhaps they have too much stake in established religious structure, in the comfy status quo of their institutions, to fear undermining it all by asking discomfiting, subversive questions. It seems to me to be intellectual cowardice. At this point in the lecture, my anger had gotten the better of me. My condemnation of those who used that ploy spilled over to all the failed theodicies and their self-deceiving believers. But most of the audience seemed to be receptive in the sense that there were no outraged outcries. It was only toward the end of the question period that a rather frail and aged figure—I believe I was later told he was both a rabbi and religious scholar—stood up almost shaking with rage. His rage was ostensibly at my citation of Dylan's rewrite (in "Highway 61 Revisited") of the Abraham, Isaac, and God human-sacrifice story. Dylan makes it seem like some sleazy transaction between carny hustlers. ("God said to Abraham, 'Kill me a son' / Abe says, 'Man, you must be puttin' me on.'") The enraged rabbi raised his voice to cry out that Jews didn't take this story literally. Well, duh. (Although, of course, millions of Jews do take every word of the Bible as the word of God.) But even if it was only a metaphor about devotion and loyalty to an insecure deity who demanded the willingness to kill one's firstborn as proof of devotion, it was a particularly repellent metaphor. One can only imagine the soul-crushing effect on Abraham—even after his child-murder reprieve—of the realization that he valued an invisible delusion more than a living child. Afterward, after the question period ended and people began to depart, the questioner approached me at the podium, and I realized that his rage, and the unspoken dissent of others in the audience, wasn't over the interpretation of the Abraham-and-Isaac story. It was (this was later confirmed to me by a colleague of his) because I had sought to strip away any possibility of a grown-up's continuing to believe in the loving and powerful God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob after Auschwitz. That conclusion he could not abide, logic or no logic. He wanted his God, he wanted the consolation of a God, he needed to pray to him, and I had said doing so was robbing the graves of the dead. I believe my feelings were as legitimate as his feeling of faithfulness, my anger as legitimate as his desire to continue a lifetime of belief and consolation. But who knows what losses he endured and how he had continued to love God? In the months that followed, I kept thinking about our confrontation. I had ended it by saying, "We'll have to agree to disagree," but that didn't mollify him, and I kept thinking about his anger. Thinking about the tone in which I had critiqued (slashed away at) the range of theodicies. I couldn't shake the image of that man shaking his finger at me. My position, should you care, is that I love everything about Jews and being Jewish—except the Jewish God. (I'm the kind of agnostic who is always arguing with the God he doesn't believe in.) And it wasn't that I couldn't take criticism. But what that man was offering was not so much criticism as shame and reproof for my anger. But I don't feel shame. Hitler is dead, and I had nonetheless hurt the feelings of an undoubtedly good man to make a point about Hitler, God, and Bob Dylan. That wasn't my purpose, nor is my purpose here to take pride in my newly awakened empathy for my questioner. It's to register an honest evolution of feeling from an anger that was not sufficiently separated from a desire to hurt those religious figures who assumed some special authority if not holiness, and whom I felt had failed me and their followers. In a place for truth-telling—the academy—I feel remorse for my zeal to make the truth hurt. And though he and I still may well differ, for that I apologize to him.

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 - and I like it a lot. Ehrman writes simple prose, explaining his viewpoints logically, and he is never polemical. He is a person who, after years of being faithful to the religion of his birth, has moved on to agnosticism - because his faith could not satisfy his doubts. So he brings the same rationality to his arguments. Unlike Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion, he is not out to prove a point which the world must accept. He is only setting forth his viewpoint. And being a Biblical scholar does help.Suffering has been the permanent bugbear of almost all religions. Hindus cleverly posit karma spread over multiple births, to explain away innocents suffering apparently without reason. Those who wrote the Upanishads posited human existence itself as "maya" (illusion), so suffering was due to one's immersion in this illusory world: once one was one with the Brahman (the cosmic soul), the suffering would vanish. The Buddha took it even one more step ahead and said that existence was of course maya, but there was no Brahman out there to realise - no individual soul either. The solution is to understand the illusory nature of existence, and identify the root cause of suffering - attachment. So the solution is to reject attachment and practice compassion as the only worthy emotion.For the Abrahamic religions, having a personal God who sits "up there", who is omnipotent, and who can always interfere in human affairs, and who is also the wellhead of love and compassion, this kind of metaphysical jugglery won't work. So they have to find an answer to the knotty problem why there is so much suffering in a world created by a loving being. And in this book, Ehrman tells you how they have tried to do so in the Bible - not once, but many times, in many different ways.The reasons for suffering as enumerated in the Bible - and why they fail (according to the author, as well as me):1. God is punishing people for transgressing his laws. This works well for a tribal God who works with whims and fancies: but not for an omnipotent one who is in charge of all creation. Why doesn't God make all people compliant so that there is no chance of law-breaking? 2. Suffering is caused by people because they have been given the "free will" to disobey God. A good argument on the surface, but on detailed analysis this also does not make sense: why give people the freedom to think for themselves, and sin, and hurt others, and then punish them to bring them to the correct path? And anyway, it does not explain innocents affected by earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis and other such "acts of God".3. Suffering is redemptive: it ultimately brings good. There can be something redemptive in suffering - but all suffering is not redemptive: for example, babies in Ethiopia dying of malnutrition, or the innocent kids caught up in a school shooting.4. Suffering is a test of faith. This is most famously explained in the Book of Job (Indian mythology also uses this trope, in the tale of Raja Harishchandra). God puts the screws on y0u to see whether you will curse him, just to win a bet with Satan. I won't waste my time dwelling on the utter stupidity of this concept.5. Suffering is caused by forces opposed to God. The so-called Apocalyptic view, where the gentleman with the horns, forked tail and the trident and his minions cause the suffering: and God and His forces are in constant battle with him. They will win out at the End of Days, of course. This view at least acknowledges evil as a force. But the concept of a mythological battle at the Armageddon (which is always just around the corner) points to this being more of a panacea than a solution.6. Suffering is mystery. A logical view - but the Biblical insistence that we should not question God (who works in mysterious ways, apparently) makes no sense. Since God has made us, our sense of right and wrong apparently comes from Him - and we have every right to call out a wrong.While analysing these, Ehrman gives us some fascinating insights also about the Bible - such as how the Hebrews had no concept of afterlife, how the Devil only made his entrance only very late, and how many of the parts which are thought to be about Jesus and future is actually about the historical Israel in the past. The book comes across as a fascinating account of the history and mythology of a people, collated over a period of centuries. Enchanting, but most definitely not divine.At the end, the author says:In the end, we may not have ultimate solutions to life’s problems. We may not know the why’s and wherefore’s. But just because we don’t have an answer to suffering does not mean that we cannot have a response to it. Our response should be to work to alleviate suffering wherever possible and to live life as well as we can. I wholeheartedly agree.I would like to quote a popular Hindi song of yore before I sign off.Kisi ki muskurahaton pe ho nisaar,Kisi ka dard mil sake to le udhaar;Kisi ke vaaste hai tere dil mein pyaar-Jeena isi ka naam hai!(Bring a smile to someone's face,If possible, take away some pain;Have love for someone in your heart-This is called living!)

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); that it's caused by evil spirits harming the innocent (Exodus, the Gospels), that God can do whatever he likes and we have no right to question it (Job), that God brings redemptive good out of suffering (Genesis, the Gospels), that suffering is a test of faith (Job, Acts), or that we can never know the reason for suffering, and can only enjoy what pleasures we can (Ecclesiastes). Then Ehrman examines the apocalyptic explanations, which arose because enemy powers had conquered Israel, and it's people were persecuted -- not for violating, but for upholding their religious laws. In that case, growing numbers of religious leaders claimed that the whole earth had fallen under control of evil forces, and only a great apocalypse could destroy those powers and establish a kingdom of God (Daniel, Revelation). Ehrman gives a remarkably lucid discussion of how apocalyptic understandings shaped the Gospels and Paul's message concerning sacrifice, the Judgement Day, and the transformation mortal bodies into immortal bodies. Ehrman's clear, objective discussions of these "answers to suffering" made me think like no other review of the Bible has ever made me do.In the end, however, Ehrman finds all these explanations of suffering inadequate, except perhaps the answer given in Ecclesiastes. He feels that all the other discussions of suffering and its solution basically amount to a claim that a supernatural being will come and take our problems away. His conclusion is this: "Just because we don't have an answer to suffering does not mean that we cannot have a response to it. Our response should be to work to alleviate suffering wherever possible and live life as well as we can." And this, to my mind, is actually where the book should have began, instead of where it ended. Instead if asking WHY suffering exists, we should focus on finding HOW to heal or alleviate it. We should ask what helps to overcome suffering in its various forms -- psychological, physical, social, and environmental. Instead of asking what external forces make us suffer, we should consider how we make ourselves suffer, and how we can change that.

I have found all of Ehrman's books (and lectures published by the Teaching Company) to be readable, thought-provoking, fascinating, and a welcome antidote to the mindless religio-babble coming from many so-called Christians, especially of the television variety.

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, newspapers and history books. An example of how difficult it is for Americans to get their heads around the scope of present-day suffering, a recent interview on Charlie Rose with the former United Nations Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs revealed the following - one thousand million (1 billion) people daily go to bed hungry, without clean water to drink, earning less than 1 dollar a day, living daily in fear for their continued existence. So back to the question. The author seems as though he would be OK with the answer - "bad things just plain happen". In fact, breathtakingly staggering bad things happen and they happen on a daily basis (for example - 40,000 humans die every day from complications arising from unclean drinking water). The real question presented by the book is "what does the Bible tell us about suffering?" Bart Ehrman, the author, is a professor of biblical studies at the University of North Carolina and he takes this question seriously. We learn how the Bible wrestles with the question of suffering throughout the Old Testament and into the New Testament. In short, what we find is not satisfying - which is probably why most people don't bring up the Bible when the question of suffering comes up - they bring up modern notions of "free will" - itself an unsatisfying explanation when examined closely (for longer than the 15 seconds its proponents typically give it).Ehrman's writing is engaging and readable. The author shows clarity of thought and intellectual rigor. In short, his answer to the question of suffering is not just "bad things just plain happen" - it's also that "we must try to be aware of human suffering and to alleviate it where we can" (e.g. the Gates' Foundation's work on malaria). Bravo.

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 two important considerations. First, there is the matter of agency. On the human side of the equation, Ehrman presupposes individualism, that the ethical (and suffering) actors are individual human organisms. This, it seems to me, is hardly adequate in approaching the texts of the bible, particularly the older ones. Therein agency is often seen as collective, most notably as regards the Hebrew people, many texts apostrophizing 'Israel' as a whole. Within that social context, there was no concern with personal perdurance after death, no heavenly reward; the reward was having successful successors. Within that social context, an individual of one group might injure an individual of another and adequate restitution might be that a third individual of the offending group be punished. Within that social context, the replacement of Job's deceased children with another set of children apparently seemed an unremarkable case of divine justice.Second, there is the matter of god's nature. Here I can't fault Ehrman for neglecting aspects of the biblical text. This is more a matter of fully representing an approach to the theodicy problem arising from the Judeo-Christian tradition, an approach best represented by Reconstructuralist Judaism. Here, understanding the god concept as the collective ideal of a community and recognizing its evolutionary development in the Hebrew canon, Reconstructuralists are able to give an account for how, on the one hand, we can find god recommending infanticide and genocide in some (older) texts while, on the other hand, recommending mercy and charity in other (newer) texts. Obviously, this approach eschews the metaphysical conceits of revealed religion, of 'special' revelations of the divine nature.

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 understand language, and when academic and theological terms are used they are clearly defined. His analysis of the book of Job I found to be particularly well done. Mr. Ehrman can now evaluate the book of Job without trying to defend God's actions, now that he has publicly announced that he's an agnostic.Yes it's true! He states early in the book that he now considers himself to be an agnostic. And that is after starting out as an evangelical fundamentalist and attending the conservative bastions of Moody Bible Institute and Wheaton College. Wow, what a roller coaster ride that must have been!I am sympathetic with his spiritual journey except that the beginning and ending points are less extreme in my own case. However, I wish Mr. Ehrman had mentioned some of the alternative concepts of God that he apparently passed over on his journey from being fundamentalist to becoming agnostic. Ehrman is sufficiently well informed to know that there are images of God that don't require God to be a divine and cosmic baby sitter. Ehrman has concluded that since there is suffering in the world, God can't possibly be anything that is humanly imaginable. Does this include a God who simply doesn't intervene in the physical universe? Does that include a God who is the "ground of being?" Perhaps Ehrman didn't want to hurt his book sales by trying to discuss difficult to understand concepts of God. He wanted to make sure he got his share of the "No-God" genre by staking out a position somewhere between Richard Dawkins and Billy Graham.

Why we suffer? This is a question that I continue to ask of my Christian faith. I was excited when this book was recommended to me because I hoped to get some insight into this question although once I checked it out from the library I kept putting it to the side and reading other things. Perhaps I didn't want to find out the answer to the question. I was forced to finally start the book this week as it is coming due, and I am so glad that I took the time to read it. The author examines the various explanations for suffering: punishment for sin, suffering is a test, suffering is beyond comprehension, suffering is the nature of things, and the apocalyptic view that there are evil forces in the world and God will eventually right all that is wrong with the world. The author provides many familiar examples from the Bible along with modern day examples to support each explanation. This book was definitely well worth my time.

As Gertrude Stein said, “There ain't no answer. There ain't gonna be any answer. There never has been an answer. That's the answer.” And so, after examining the Bible’s explanations for suffering in this world, and finding them logically, morally, or intellectually insufficent (or indefensible), Ehrman is led back to the position of Ecclesiastes, which is that there is no explanation for suffering, there is no why. We are left with the inexplicable physical fact of brief lives accumulating pain in larger or smaller amounts, and then we die. It is grim, but better an honest answer than a comforting lie. No one is going to rescue us from pain, and death is certain, but we can at least recognize the dignity in the lives of others and try our best to help where we can.

I believe I have given a written review to all of my 5 star rated books so I believe it would be out of place if I didn't give one here as well. First, I have read Misquoting Jesus by Ehrman and I did like it, didn't love it, but really liked it. I do like Ehrman's writing style and his ability to keep his incredible intelligence from confusing the common dude (ie. me). I listened to a radio interview with Bart Ehrman where he was asked about this particular book and why he wrote it. He stated that this book was going to be of a personal nature rather than a regualr scholarly book related to his knowledge of the Bible. This book was going to be focused on the major cause of his loss of faith to the Catholic church. So naturally, I gave it a shot.This book was difficult to read in certain areas and I found myself not agreeing with some of Ehrman's opinions relating to interpreting scripture, but he is a smart dude and shouldn't be dismissed. This book is filled with Ehrman's personal opinion, but his main point is a very good point and deserves thoughtful consideration. That point is, why do people suffer if God is as actively involved in humanity like the Bible claims? As Ehrman points out in the book, the Bible has blatant contradictions in trying to answer that question and he does a good job making his case. The main reason I loved this book is because I found myself realizing that I find that question really troublesome as well. It is a very difficult question most people have, but most simply ignore it or give it the quick answers discussed in the book: God works in mysterious ways, Free Agency of man, or we simply won't know in this life. The last is the best answer, but it still leaves the question unanswerable.

Is it Biblical to see natural disasters, military defeats and disease as God’s punishment for sin, i.e. to blame the victims for their suffering? It sure is according to the Old Testament. The Bible also offers at least four other explanations for suffering, however. New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman struggled for many years to understand why suffering exists. Why does genocide happen, if God is both all-powerful and all-loving and is actively engaged in human affairs, responding to prayer? God has the power to prevent suffering, yet it still exists. Ehrman searched the Bible for answers.The Old Testament frequently depicts suffering as divine punishment. This is called the classical view of suffering; God requires suffering to punish disobedience. Adam and Eve sinned and were banished from the Garden of Eden for their disobedience. Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed, and the sinful human race was almost wiped out by the great flood that killed all but Noah and his family. The prophets consistently warned the people of Israel that they were being punished for their disobedience when they suffered various afflictions. The prophet Amos, for example, wrote that because the people of Israel oppressed the poor, God says “I will punish you for all your iniquities…An adversary shall surround your land and strip you of your defense, and your strongholds shall be plundered.” (Amos 3:1,11) The prophet Hosea wrote that God was angry because the people were worshiping other deities. “Therefore the tumult of war shall rise against your people, and all of your fortresses shall be destroyed.” (Hosea 10:14) Soon after this warning, Assyria conquered the northern kingdom, which disappeared from history. It wasn’t just the prophets who understood suffering as God’s judgment. The book of Proverbs, for example, teaches that wicked suffer for their behavior, while those obedient to God avoid suffering. “No harm happens to the righteous, but the wicked are filled with trouble.” (Proverbs 12:21)In Deuteronomy 28, Moses warned his people that if they obey God, He “will bless them high above all the nations of the earth.” If they disobey, however, “cursed shall you be” with drought, defeat, disease, and incurable “boils, ulcers, scurvy and itch” as well as blindness and madness. In Matthew 25, Jesus teaches that in the final judgment, those who turned their backs on the hungry, the sick, the foreigner or the prisoner would be condemned to eternal punishment. The Bible doesn’t always blame the victims for their suffering. Sometimes it is evil behavior by some that causes suffering for others. The prophets Amos and Jeremiah recognized that the rich caused the poor to suffer by oppressing them. Bathsheba’s husband Uriah was killed not because he deserved punishment, but because David sinned. Likewise, it was not divine punishment when the martyr Stephen was stoned to death, nor when the apostle Paul was beaten and stoned in Lystra. Scripture shows that God sometimes uses suffering to achieve his purposes. Genesis tells the story of Joseph, who was sold into slavery by his jealous brothers. But he eventually became a powerful administrator in Egypt who saved his family from famine. Another example is found in 400 years later, when Moses seeks to lead the Hebrew slaves out of Egypt. But God hardens the pharaoh’s heart so he does not allow them to leave, even after God inflicts nine plagues on the Egyptians. God wanted to demonstrate his power repeatedly so his people would know that He is God. (Exodus 14:17-18) Likewise, Jesus delayed for two days going to heal Lazarus, saying “this illness is for God’s glory so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” (John 11:4). Four days later, after Lazarus died, Jesus raised him from the dead. The prime example of suffering to achieve God’s purpose is the suffering and death of Jesus, which led to redemption. “Salvation required suffering,” writes Ehrman. Another explanation for suffering came from the Apocalyptics at the end of the Old Testament and in the New Testament. They believed that the world is divided into good and evil, God versus the Devil. God’s enemies dominate the current age, and cause believers to suffer for following divine law. Apocalyptics such as Jesus and Paul taught that God will soon intervene to overthrow the forces of evil and set up his own kingdom on earth. Modern Christians are less likely to perceive suffering as divine punishment, preferring to view it as the result of free will, which some misuse to abuse others. That explanation, Ehrman points out, does not account for natural disaster and disease. Besides, the Bible tells us that God sometimes intervenes to counteract the abuse of free will. But not most of the time. Ehrman remains unconvinced by the free will contention as well as by the Biblical explanations, except for the one found in the books of Job and Ecclesiastes. Their explanation of suffering is that there is no answer. In the poetic dialogues that comprise most of Job, the protagonist’s severe suffering is explained in two ways: His friends argue that the pain is punishment Job must deserve. But Job, whom we are told is innocent, can’t determine the reason. When God appears to Job, He said the friends were wrong, but does not explain why innocents suffer. In Ecclesiastes, the Teacher attributes suffering to bad luck and to circumstances we can’t control. Seven times he advises his readers to “eat, drink and be merry” because this life is all there is. Some modern Christians embrace the answer that suffering is a mystery, though they claim it will eventually make sense when God reveals His plan. In God’s Problem, Ehrman displays his mastery of the Bible in exploring this topic, and he does so in language accessible to the layman. Readers may prefer to skip over sections about Ehrman’s life to get to his analysis about how the Bible explains suffering. One may disagree with some of his opinions but will nonetheless gain a better understanding of Scripture. ###

Ehrman is a brilliant writer, and I've read most of his books. His biblical scholarship and ability to make it accessible are both unexcelled. Ultimately, regarding the question of life and why people suffer, he comes down in favor of the view of Ecclesiastes: "Vanity of vanities! All is vanity." To greatly simplify it (and perhaps still do it justice): We only go around once in life, so make the best of it. Suffer when you suffer; eat, drink, and be merry when you're not suffering. Don't make life an existential argument. Or as Sonja told Boris in Woody Allen's Love and Death, as he was about to go to the front and likely get killed: "Dress warmly, Boris, and have a good time."