God's Problem - Bart D. Ehrman

In a certain way, I purchased this book in an attempt to solve "Kurt's problem", my problem, which is why I fell away from the Catholic faith of my childhood. My life parallels Mr. Ehrman's - strong in my faith as a young man, active in my church, and then eventually as I learned more about the Bible and my faith, becoming more and more disaffected, until finally I dropped away entirely.

In the book, God's problem is the problem of suffering - namely how the world can be filled with suffering if God is who he is said to be - omniscient, omnipotent, and benevolent. The Bible speaks about this topic at length in many contradictory ways. Mr. Ehrman's book is thorough, easy to understand, and easy to read. He walks you through his arguments, and analysis, without truly taxing your thinking skills. However, he does tax your faith.

My way of dealing with the obvious contradictions throughout the Bible was to conclude that the primitive men who wrote the stories in the Bible were just trying to understand God in their own way, and that I could choose not to believe in a God who would willingly drown thousands of Egyptian soldiers just so slaves could escape. I would instead believe that the Israelites wrote the story that way because they were so angry at the Egyptians, and would tell the story of their utter defeat at the hands of the enslaved Israelites. I preferred to think of a God who could push the Egyptians back gently and irresistibly, but without catastrophic bloodshed. I preferred to think of a God who could produce great results without small interventions, that is, who could work with God-like efficiency.

I probably spent five or six hours reading the book, and more thinking about it. Mr. Ehrman recounts and analyzes several key stories, such as the book of Daniel, the book of Revelation, the book of Ecclesiastes, the writings of Paul, and finally, significantly for me, the book of Job.

As a young man preparing for confirmation, I was stung by the criticism of a fellow student at the public school I attended, who stated that Catholics did not study the Bible like Protestants did. As a result, I picked up a Bible and began reading. After reading the book of Job, I sought out this student to ask what the story meant, since it seemed like gibberish to me. As it turned out, this student had not read it, and was simply echoing a piece of prejudice about Catholics, no doubt learned from his parents' mouth.

So, I remember studying the book of Job, and not making sense out of it. In "God's Problem", Mr. Ehrman analyzes the book of Job, and points out that the current version of the book of Job is actually assembled from the work of two different authors, who have different styles, and who wrote in different dialects. The two parts of the story actually contradict each other, which no doubt explains why an inexperienced Biblical scholar like myself couldn't understand it.

You will have to read the book to find the explanation Mr. Ehrman provides for this story.

The book also includes relations of the central discussion about suffering to other literary work, both religious, like the apocryphal books of the Bible, and not, such as "The Brothers Karamazov".

I am drawn to the same conclusion that Mr. Ehrman reaches, and for the same reason. He feels most comfortable with the theology of Ecclesiastes, as do I:

"This is what I have seen to be good: it is fitting to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of the life God gives us; for this is our lot. (Ecclesiastes 5:18-19)"

I can not recommend this book more strongly. It is an excellent book.