As I conduct interviews on theodicy with various authors, I’d like to suggest this: We need a theodicy (and in fact a full theology) that is as comfortable in Job as in Deuteronomy. This would be the expression of a faith that isn’t forgotten in good times or repudiated in bad. Here again is the…
I like reading the texts before I’ve read the lesson material so that I can see what I can learn from them without the direction of the lesson topic. So why do I call this text “out of context” when I haven’t even seen how it will be used by the lesson material. The reason…
Bruce Epperly, author of the recently released book Finding God in Suffering: A Journey with Job, questions the view that God determines the outcome of football games (or, I suspect, any other sport), rewarding the faithful and punishing the unfaithful. The title to this post includes his money quote from his post, Is God a…
“I think my prayers make a difference, but they’re not omnipotent.” Listen to the whole interview by Doug Pagitt with Dr. Bruce Epperly, author of the recently released book Finding God in Suffering.
Last night I had the privilege of interviewing Dr. Bruce Epperly, author of several Energion titles out of a total of 28 books he has written so far. Bruce is always both interesting and challenging, and doesn’t avoid the hard questions. We placed his books on a special “buy 2 get 1 free” sale just…
On Tuesday, January 6, 2015, I will be interviewing Dr. Bruce Epperly on his newly released book Finding God in Suffering: A Journey with Job. I’ve just completed a trailer for this event: You can watch the actual event here:
From the forthcoming book Finding God in Suffering: A Journey with Job by Bruce G. Epperly. The book of Job invites us to claim our identity as theologians. Job shouts out to us, “You are a theologian” because we have experienced the pain of the world and are trying to make sense of it. Job…
In my recent reading from the book of Job I came across the following from Zophar. I’ll quote just a bit: “Shouldn’t the multitude of words be answered? Should a man full of talk be justified? Should your boastings make men hold their peace? When you mock, shall no man make you ashamed? For you…
Ehrman, Bart D. God’s Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question-Why We Suffer. New York: HarperCollins, 2008. ISBN: 978-0-06-117397-4. 294 pp. I have previously noted that Bart Ehrman’s books are much more controversial on their jackets than on their pages (see notes on The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot and Response…
In chapter six of his book God’s Problem, Ehrman tackles the book of Job. (My notes on the book as a whole are here.) He describes the book as coming from two sources, one containing the narrative portions, and one containing the poetic dialogues. This view is not that exceptional, though one should also consider…
