Religious studies professor Bart D. Ehrman joins Fresh Air to discuss human suffering as it is addressed in the Bible. If there is an all-powerful and loving God, he asks, why do human beings suffer?

It's one of the oldest faith questions: If there's an all-powerful and loving God, why do human beings suffer?

In his latest book, religious studies professor Bart D. Ehrman wrestles with that question — and with the implications of the often-contradictory answers he finds. In God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question — Why We Suffer, Ehrman meditates upon how the Bible explains human suffering, why he finds the explanations unconvincing, and why he gave up on being a Christian.

Ehrman, author of Misquoting Jesus and more than a dozen other books, chairs the religious studies department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

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