August 2012

Ehrman’s Problem 20: Everything But the Kitchen Sink

In my last post I pointed out that Ehrman begged the question for his major argument as to why the apocalyptic argument didn’t help us answer why God allows suffering. In this post I will address his next two arguments. I titled this post, “Everything But the Kitchen Sink,” because, frankly, his arguments appear rather …

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Ehrman’s Problem 19: Begging the Question

Now we turn to Ehrman’s fuller critique of the apocalyptic solution. He writes, “For apocalypticists, cosmic forces of evil were loose in the world, and these evil forces were aligned against the righteous people of God, bringing pain and misery down upon their heads, making them suffer because they sided with God. But this state …

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Ehrman’s Problem 18: Confused About Jesus’ Coming “Soon”

Ehrman entitled what he considers the last of the Bible’s explanations for suffering, “God has the Last Word: Jewish Christian Apocalypticism.” The apocalyptic answer, in short, is that at the Judgment God will resolve all the injustice that is in the world. Let’s start with Ehrman’s preliminary objection that the Biblical authors said that the …

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Ehrman’s Problem 17: Humility Is Absent Without Leave

Ehrman calls the other answer to why God allows suffering found in the book of Job, “The Poetic Dialogues of Job: There Is No Answer” (172). Ehrman concludes that “God does not listen to the pleas of the innocent; he overpowers them by his almighty presence” (183). Ehrman writes that Job wanted a divine audience …

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Ehrman’s Problem 16: Cosmic Issues He Doesn’t Understand

We come next to Ehrman’s chapter, “Does Suffering Make Sense?” In it he divides the book of Job into two separate answers and concludes, no surprise, that neither of them succeeds in answering our many questions. Ehrman even argues that the book of Job has two separate authors, but that’s just an assertion largely based …

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