Book Summary and Reviews of The Year of Living Biblically by A. J. Jacobs

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Cathryn Conroy

One Man Spends a Year Living the Bible Literally: It's Laugh-Out-Loud Funny and Deeply Spiritual
This book should come with a warning! Beware reading it in public places because you will be laughing out loud—repeatedly—and you risk getting the same wary looks from strangers that author A.J. Jacobs endured for the year he decided to live biblically. That is, he lived his life, both in his actions and physical appearance, following the Bible as literally as possible.

For quite a few years now, part of my daily spiritual discipline is to read one chapter of the Hebrew Scriptures and one chapter of the New Testament. I get to the end and start over. I'm now on my fourth reading of the Hebrew Scriptures and tenth of the New Testament, and I thought it would be fun to reread this book now that I better understand what Jacobs was trying to do.

Here's the dichotomy of "The Year of Living Biblically": It's both hilarious and spiritually moving—at the same time.

Having grown up a secular Jew—no synagogue, no sabbath dinners, no bar mitzvah—Jacobs decided to read the Bible cover to cover and then try to live out its rules, regulations, and dictums as closely as possible. There are 613 Jewish commandments found mostly in the first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Jacobs calls himself agnostic, and he was curious as to whether living the Bible's rules would make him more spiritual and turn him into a believer as he was obeying the Ten Commandments, loving his neighbor, and tithing his income.

Unlike most people who believe the Bible literally, Jacobs's goal was not to pick and choose what to do, but to do it all, including stoning an adulterer, keeping the Sabbath, not wearing clothes of mixed fibers, blowing the shofar on the first of the month, visiting a (real) Samaritan, and playing a 10-string lyre. Yes, some of it is farfetched and attention-getting and a lot of it is sarcastic (but never snarky), but almost all of it is enlightening as he tries to live a life where the ultra-religious customs of Abraham's day clash directly with the mores of the secular 21st century.

He split the quest into two parts. He devoted eight months of the year to the Old Testament, and four months to the New Testament, which included consulting with and interviewing experts, including rabbis, ministers, priests, and scholars of all persuasions—from ultra-conservative to liberal. He ponders big questions, such as how can the Bible be so wise as well as so barbaric? And he considers the seemingly impossible, such as how to make an animal sacrifice on the streets of New York City in 2007, how to become a shepherd, and how to best eat locusts. (He succeeds with all three!)

To look the part, he grew his beard, which became an unruly bird's nest (no trimming allowed!), wore only white clothing, strapped a paper with the Ten Commandments to his forehead every day and adorned his clothes with tassels—all following ancient Jewish law. Then he went about his business in New York, including his day job as a writer for Esquire magazine.

The funniest parts of the book are the reactions he gets from strangers, friends, and family, but no one is funnier in this book than his beleaguered wife, Julie, who must put up with so much!

And then this happens: Jacobs unexpectedly becomes closer to God, discovering the wisdom and poetry of the Bible, finding solace in prayer and meditation, and immersing himself in the mystery of God and the universe. Is he still an agnostic in the end? You'll have to read the book to find out.

Other books by A. J. Jacobs at BookBrowse