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Engaging Discussions about Early Christianity

The Variety of Views of Suffering in the Bible

Some thirty years ago now, when I taught my class at Rutgers on “The Problem of Suffering in the Biblical Traditions,” I came to realize – or at least came to realize more clearly – that a number of the views set forth in the Bible simply did not resonate with me.  Which, I suppose, is a more tactful way of saying that I simply didn’t agree with them. By far the most prominent explanation for suffering in the Bible is that God is using pain, misery, and human disaster in order to punish his people because they have failed to live up to his standards and to follow his will.  He penalizes them by inflicting pain  That is why there are droughts, famines, economic crises, and military disasters.   That lesson is taught time after time after time in the Hebrew Bible – just read Deuteronomy, or Amos, or Jeremiah, or, well, any of the prophets.  I suppose when I was a fundamentalist I completely accepted that view.   But eventually – probably when teaching this [...]

2020-04-03T02:09:43-04:00July 9th, 2017|Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, Public Forum, Reflections and Ruminations|
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The Afterlife (or not) in Ecclesiastes

In my previous post I provided some comments on one of my favorite biblical books, Ecclesiastes.  Here I will continue my comments, with some remarks on the topic of the thread, the view of the afterlife in the book, a view unlike what you find in *most* of the Hebrew Bible.  Again, this is taken from my book God’s Problem. ****************************************************************** For the author of Ecclesiastes “traditional” wisdom (such as one finds in the book of Proverbs) was inherently flawed -- another reason I like him so much.  It simply is not true (as Proverbs insists) that the righteous are rewarded in life and the wicked perish.  As the author of Ecclesiastes states:  “In my vain life I have seen everything; there are righteous people who perish in their righteousness, and there are wicked people who prolong their life in their evil doing” (7:15); “there are righteous people who are treated according to the conduct of the wicked, and there are wicked people who are treated according to the conduct of the righteous.  I said [...]

2020-04-03T02:27:46-04:00April 7th, 2017|Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, Public Forum|
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Ecclesiastes and the Meaning of Life

As I have been arguing, *most* of the authors of the Hebrew Bible who have anything to say about life after death believe that people go to Sheol – whether they are good or wicked, faithful or unfaithful.  It is the fate of all.  Different authors may have different views of what Sheol entails, but nowhere is it a place or reward or punishment for what one does (or believes) in this life. A major exception seems to be the book of Ecclesiastes, which does not subscribe to an afterlife of any kind.  Looking back over the posts of the blog from the past five years I’m surprised to see I haven’t said much about Ecclesiastes – surprised because it is one of my favorite books of the entire Bible.  I’d like to give a bit of an overview, and that will take two posts.  I have lifted these reflections from my book God’s Problem. ************************************************************** Ecclesiastes has long been one of my favorite books of the Bible.  It is normally included among the “Wisdom” [...]

2020-04-03T02:27:57-04:00April 5th, 2017|Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, Public Forum|
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Why Do Good People Suffer? A Blast from the Past

I was looking around for an interesting post from a few years ago, and I found this one, from March 2013, which, as it turns out, is relevant to what I am going to want to say in the thread I've just started on views of the afterlife that developed in ancient Israel (leading up to the Christian views that eventually came to be so dominant throughout the West.).    The post provides, in a nutshell, three major views about why there is suffering.  Why is that relevant?  One of my theses I have going into my research for my next book is that views of the afterlife developed originally as a way to explain why there are such inequities in the present life.  Here's the post: ************************************************************************ I’m in New York City for a few days. Last night I gave a lecture at NYU; they had asked that I talk about “God, The Bible, and the Problem of Suffering.” That’s the topic of my book God’s Problem, and so I spun off a talk [...]

2017-09-22T13:21:18-04:00March 5th, 2017|Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, Public Forum, Reflections and Ruminations|
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