God's Problem

The Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question - Why We Suffer

By: Bart D. Ehrman

Narrated by: L. J. Ganzer

Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins

Publisher's summary

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.

©2008 Bart D. Ehrman (P)2008 HarperCollins Publishers

Details

This book presents a subjective view of what the Bible's argument is for the cause of suffering in the world. It excludes no details or citations.

Despite "Suffer the little children"

Ehrman's latest book puts forth the Scriptural answers for why there is suffering, in addition to historical and modern interpretations of these answers, and explains how these answers fall short. Each section examines a different suggestion for the problem of suffering and looks at New and Old Testement answers to them. Included are the ideas of suffering because of God-given Free Will, suffering as a test of faith, suffering as punishment, suffering to teach lessons, and suffering as an Apocolyptic sign-and of course that we cannot know God's reason for "allowing" suffering. He even includes the parent analogy-that God is like a parent who must punish His children. Though it is not as Scriptually founded as many of the other arguments, it is a common modern argument (right up there with Free Will).
A good protion of this book is set aside as Ehrman's own memoir of how he became (as he calls it) Dead Again-deciding that he no longer believes the tennets of his Born-Again faith and becoming an agnostic. This book is an excellent analysis of what many believers and non-believers grapple with, and many eventually come to the same conclusions he does-that the Bible does not explain in any real and satisfying way how an all-loving and all-powerful God can allow so many people to die of starvation, malaria, cruelty, etc-and he provides devistating statistics. It may also be useful for people trying to understand the position many take in not being able to believe in God-despite this, Ehrman is NOT an atheist, nor is he trying to convert anything. He presents the literary/Biblical criticism of Scripture,tries to understand it, and applies classic philosophy to the arguements he's heard. This book never came close to making me question my own faith, but it has lead me to think more closely about some of the more painful aspects of divinity.

Good narration that matches the tone of the author's meaning.

No Problems here

I have read several of Bert Ehrman books and all of them have been educational, surprising and enlightening. This book is of a little different tone then I am use to from Ehrman but was none the less very good. He, for the first time, seems to put his belief or opinion forward in this discussion. I feel as though I got to know him better and therefore got to know what motivates him in writing his books. I did find that the main theme through the book, suffering, was a little scary and came very close to home. You see I listen to his books as I take my best friend and companion out for a walk every night. But just as the book was about to end my boxer took ill and died in my back yard of a cardiac arrest. He was only 5 1/2 years of age. To make an already bad story even worse this was the second boxer that I had that died young. I still have the last 5 minutes of the book to finish listening to but I just can’t muster the courage. So the question put forward in this book became relevant. If there is a God why would he let such things happen? uuuummmm...Not sure I can answer that but I can recommend you read this book. Good Luck

Great book but drop the weird religious music

This is another great and well-written book by Ehrman, and I thoroughly recommend it. My only criticism is that the audiobook includes incongruous and often hilariously ill-timed injections of stereotypical, warm, Christian-sounding orchestral music. (In the most egregious instance, Ehrman is talking about the terrible suffering that God inflicts upon Job when out of nowhere the music starts playing, which made me burst out laughing.) The impression is that someone unfamiliar with the book arbitrarily applied religious music after glancing at the title. Without the music, this audiobook would deserve five stars in all categories.

Weirdly encouraging for a book about suffering.

Really good book, thought provoking and with a lot of references throughout the whole Bible.

Giving the performance 4 stars just because of a reoccurring strange issue with music popping up mid-chapter several times, for what seemed like no reason to me. It was pretty distracting, it sounded like the same clip that played at the beginning at end, just sprinkled randomly throughout the book.

Very good book but it lacks something

What was one of the most memorable moments of God's Problem?

The most interesting aspects for me were the discussions of the book of Job and Jesus and his disciples as apocryphal Jews.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Not for me, it was better to break it up into different chapters which allowed me the ability to consider the information presented

Any additional comments?

I haven't read much of Ehrman's early works but I was somewhat disappointed that the book focused a great deal on the writings of the Old Testament. The view of God in the Old Testament has always been presented to me as a more vengeful being than the one that followed the crucifixion of Jesus. There was some great stuff on the New Testament as well and an argument against looking at Revelations as an impending doom, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Overall, the book was very good but slightly short of great. I will go back to some of Ehrman's earlier works to see if those better help provide a more complete view of the scriptures in conjunction with this work.

The Problem of Evil

If you think you understand the Problem of Evil and think you have a solution, you should consider the arguments in this book. For there are many proposed solutions. And Dr. Erhman lays out all them before proceeding to criticize them. He may not convince you there is no God. But he will definitely make you think about his character.

great book. music was annoying

the topic was incredible. however the music was annoying. but I love the content. anything by Ehrman is amazing

Well, That Cleared Up a Couple of Questions!

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

If a plane goes down, killing 400 and one survives unscathed against all odds: Hallelujah, it's a miracle! Right? Right?
After failing to find any good answers myself, I have wondered what the Bible really says about why bad things happen. Now I know, and it is fascinating (especially his take on the stories of Abraham and Job.)
As Ehrman says, most people develop their own comforting set of views about why bad things happen, and what God's role is in this. Ehrman pretty much knocks these props away by very carefully reading exactly what the Bible says.
So, I would recommend this book to someone who is actively wondering about this, but not to any old unsuspecting civilian.

Biblical scholar Fall from grace and his path to living without a God?

Focusing on Christian and the Jewish texts biblical scholar an un born again Ehrman hammers the point that suffering doesn’t jive with either the view that we are full of sin, original and present and therefore are paying the eternal price of making our creator mad or that suffering is the result of free will, that God won’t intervene and all will be sorted out later. How then do we explain natural disasters? He will take you through each of the texts and introduce how Jewish scholars needed some out and Paul saw the story of Jesus as the answer to earthly suffering. Entirely through revelations as he at best had only heard stories he created the idea that the sacrifice of god was fulfilled with the risen son and that he was living in end times. This book doesn’t take this as deep as one can but it is clear that all of these revelatory scriptures were referring symbolically to Rome.
It is a fools errand to believe that there is anything but the good you can create with your life. Moral imperative does not require and if anything is corrupted by looking for an all knowing being.
I had just finished a very deep dive on The Historicity of Jesus which of course is at the core of convincingly bringing in the early Christian’s who needed all the boxes ticked to be convinced of his deity. I think this book serves its thesis that no god can exist unless you view them as a cruel, heartless or absent modifier of the cruelty of life. To see that scribes and retractors erased the clear evidence that none of the biblical stories actually happened so that Pauls idea of end times takes this to another level.
I really enjoyed expanding my knowledge of the history of the Old Testament.
I don’t think you will be disappointed with this take down by a former born again Christian. In the end I think you will better understand how these texts have informed, inflamed and inspired despite the fact that these are clearly the works and world view of Bronze Age men attempting to obviate the daily horrors they endure. The question is should you?