The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible

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Synopsis

Following the success of his bestselling book, The Know-It-All, author A. J. Jacobs started brainstorming a new project to work on. He was raised in a secular Jewish family and identified as agnostic, but as a relatively new father, he was becoming increasingly interested in the role of religion in day-to-day life and trying to figure out how he would handle this topic with his young son as the boy grew up. That's when he alighted on the idea to try to follow the Bible as literally as possible for one year. He made a plan to work on the Old Testament for the first eight months since that part was a little more familiar to him, and spend the last four months on the New Testament. He vowed to follow not only the more well-known rules such as the Ten Commandments, but also the lesser known ones such as blowing a horn at the beginning of each month, not wearing clothing made of mixed fibers, and growing an epic beard. The experiment resulted in a spiritual journey that's equal parts humorous and profound and that uncovered truths that can be applied both personally and universally, recorded in a way that will have broad appeal among both the religious and the non-religious.

Review

The Year of Living Biblically is, as the subtitle suggests, a chronicle of the author's attempt to live out the Bible's rules as literally as possible. After the success of his previous book, A. J. Jacobs was looking for another idea for a book project and alighted on this one for a few reasons. He identifies as a secular Jewish agnostic, describing himself as "Jewish in the same way that the Olive Garden is Italian," which is to say, "not very." Although he grew up secular with little knowledge of the Bible and didn't really believe in God in any traditional sense, he'd become more interested in the role of religion in the modern world. Also, as a relatively new father, he wanted to give his son a choice about what he could believe when he was older, and needed to know what to tell him about the Bible. Hence, this project was born. Given just how many rules there are in the Bible, at first Mr. Jacobs thought perhaps he'd bitten off more than he could chew, but eventually he formulated a sensible plan on how to approach it, so that it wasn't so overwhelming. He spent the first eight months focusing on the Old Testament, since that's the part that most people of Jewish heritage follow. Then he spent the latter four months on the New Testament, exploring Christian beliefs. What resulted was a year-long spiritual journey that took him, not only to places right within his local community and home state of New York, but also to various locales throughout the United States, and even abroad to Israel. The insights he gained range from profound to humorous and are recorded in such a way that they should have broad appeal for both the religious and the non-religious.

I've had The Year of Living Biblically on my TBR pile for quite some time. I can't recall now how I came across it, but I remember it sounding like it had some similarities to Rachel Held Evans' A Year of Biblical Womanhood, a book that I'm very interested in but have yet to read at this point. I picked up The Year of Living Biblically this month because it was announced as the latest pick for my church book club, and since I haven't attended in a while, I thought it would be a great way to jump back in. When I found out that the author was a secular Jewish agnostic and that the book was billed as being humorous, I was a little concerned that perhaps he'd be poking fun at the Bible and all it's seemingly silly rules and regulations. However, I came away from reading it feeling that I shouldn't have worried. While, as one might expect, many humorous situations arose from his attempts to follow the Bible literally, I felt that Mr. Jacobs actually took the project very seriously and treated this holy book with reverence. He also seemed to be genuine in his search for spiritual knowledge, employing what he referred to as his board of spiritual advisors, who came from a wide range of backgrounds and beliefs, both Jewish and Christian. He also chose to have conversations with people from farther ends of the spectrum that he might not have otherwise, such as the Amish, snake-handlers, and the people who run the creationist museum on the Christian side or the most Orthodox Hasids on the Jewish side, plus a little bit of everything in between. I felt this gave the book a very balanced feel. In addition to being an exploration of Judeo-Christian beliefs, it's also part memoir, as the author discusses the things going on in his personal life (such as fatherhood and his and his wife's efforts to have another child) and how this all relates to his project.

Mr. Jacobs has a very friendly and accessible writing style that makes for easy, entertaining reading, and I ultimately thought it was interesting to see the Bible through the eyes of someone who was basically discovering it for the first time, which gave it a fresh perspective. I appreciated his open-mindedness and that no matter how "out there" someone's beliefs seemed to be, he always gave them the benefit of the doubt and usually came away from the encounters feeling like he'd learned something and that they weren't as weird as they might seem at first glance. He also took the time to genuinely explore the reasons behind some of the Bible's more strange and obscure rules rather than just writing them off as unimportant. And ultimately he was able to glean something from the experience and make some positive changes in his life. One of the reasons I was interested in reading this book is because there are a number of people in my life who believe that everything in the Bible should be taken literally--full-stop. However, I don't agree with this belief and wanted to find a well-written book to help dispute these claims. After reading it, I think that The Year of Living Biblically qualifies. One of the big things that stood out to me was that no matter how adamant a religious group was that they were following the Bible literally, they were ultimately still cherry-picking, because it's darn near impossible to follow every single rule and regulation to the absolute letter. So if nothing else, I've come away from reading this book, not only entertained, but also still firm in my belief that each of us has an individual responsibility for figuring out how best to interpret our holiest of books--the Bible.

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A. J. Jacobs