I disagree with Dr Ehrman’s claim that the Bible offers no good answers to the problem of evil (POE). Particularly, his rejection of the most basic Jobian theodicy (that is, the first theodicy we find in Job 1 and 2), that God allows suffering to test us as to our choice to reject or hold fast to God, seems to me to be mistaken. The following is a quotation from my book, Human Suffering and the Evil of Religion, published earlier this year. I’d like to have his response to the following but, being new to the forum, I’m not sure if he responds to these. If not, I’ll browse this site a little more to try to find where to place my question. In the meantime, I’m open to responses by anyone else. 

“Bart Ehrman . . . [says]: ‘As satisfying as the book of Job has been to people over the ages, I have to say I find it supremely dissatisfying. If God tortures, maims, and murders people just to see how they will react—to see if they will not blame him, when in fact he is to blame—then this does not seem to me to be a God worthy of worship. Worthy of fear, yes. Of praise, no.’ [God’s Problem, 172.]

“. . . We should have no problem admitting that God is responsible for this pain, if that is what Ehrman means by ‘blame,’ but we cannot say that God has done anything wrong. God allows this suffering (torture, maiming, etc.) to know how we will react, whether we will consider him guilty of doing wrong when in fact he is not. For God to allow this kind of suffering would not be evil since the far greater good that God has planned will come of it. Yes, the point is to see how people will respond to suffering with the degree of suffering never being more than what they are able to take, never being so great that they are forced to reject God. But the reason for the suffering is also to make them into something they could never become without this suffering. How they respond to God, both within and outside of the context of suffering, are the most crucial decisions they could ever make. 

“To freely turn to God or to turn against God makes us into people who are in the very core of our being either creatures who are, on our part, one with God or alienated from God. . . .

“Ehrman’s error is that he thinks that allowing this suffering ‘just to see how they will react’ to God is some trivial, childishly egotistical reason, whereas it is actually the very deepest reason for our existence. One wonders what he thinks the reason for our existence on earth might be. Does he think we are here to merely live a few score and ten years, to enjoy our families, raise children, maybe enjoy our labor and the company of friends? That’s it? Anyone looking at life in this world objectively should see that these trivial explanations are not good reasons for our being here. These are not the kinds of reasons God would put us here. On the other hand, if God put us in a world which is so constructed so as to allow us to freely choose for or against God at some time or another without excessive pressure either way, this would be the highest imaginable reason we could exist. So if it is true that God does compensate for all undeserved suffering and that God has this extremely important reason for allowing this suffering, then God would still be good and bring it about that the greatest good will occur. Such a God would still deserve our highest worship and adoration.” 

Dennis Jensen, Human Suffering and the Evil of Religion, (Resource Pub, 2018), 13–15.