文档介绍：God’s Problem
How the Bible Fails to Answer
Our Most Important Question—
Why We Suffer
Bart D. Ehrman
To Jeff Siker and Judy Siker—Fuzzy and Judes—who
have had their share, but remain as beacons.
Contents
Preface v
one Suffering and a Crisis of Faith 1
two Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God:
The Classical View of Suffering 21
three More Sin and More Wrath: The Dominance of
the Classical View of Suffering 57
four The Consequences of Sin 91
five The Mystery of the Greater Good:
Redemptive Suffering 125
six Does Suffering Make Sense?
The Books of Job and Ecclesiastes 159
seven God Has the Last Word:
Jewish-Christian Apocalypticism 197
eight More Apocalyptic Views:
God’s Ultimate Triumph over Evil 229
nine Suffering: The Conclusion 261
Notes 279
Index 285
Scripture Index 291
About the Author
Credits
Cover
Copyright
About the Publisher
Preface
This book deals with a matter that is very important to me, not just
professionally but also personally. I have written it for a broad audi-
ence of regular readers, not for a narrow audience of specialists
(who might, I suppose, be considered irregular readers). In view of
the intended audience, I have kept endnotes and references to a
sparse minimum. Anyone interested in further, in-depth scholar-
ship can easily find it by looking around a bit. Two excellent places
to start are James L. Crenshaw’s Defending God: Biblical Responses
to the Problem of Evil (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005),
and Antti Laato and Johannes C. de Moor’s Theodicy in the World of
the Bible (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2003). Both books are fully docu-
mented, and the former provides an extensive bibliography.
I have focused on the biblical “solutions” to the problem of suffer-
ing that strike me as the most important. Since the so-called classical
view dominates the Hebrew Bible and the apocalyptic view domi-
nates the New Testament, I have devoted t