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A.J. Jacobs

The Year of Living Biblically

We sometimes hear of people who claim follow the rules of the Bible to the letter. But how practicable is this? In The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible A.J. Jacobs decides to give it a try.

Mind you, he doesn't try to follow all of the rules. One thing that the book makes very clear is that such a thing would be impossible, and there is always some degree of choosing and interpreting the rules. Rather each section of the book quotes a verse from the Bible and Jacobs explains his attempts to follow it. Not wearing mixed fibres meant packing away some of his clothes, but wasn't so difficult. Not eating fruit from trees which are less than 5 years old is a bit harder. The reader also finds out about what he got to see during his year, for instance sacrificing chickens and handling serpents.

It's interesting how agnostic Jacobs gradually begins to 'buy into' the idea of religion, but don't expect anything too deep from this book. You'll more likely read it for the humour, for instance working out how to stone adulterers without getting into trouble, and if you accept it on that basis then you'll find it an enjoyable read.

Amazon.com info
Paperback 416 pages  
ISBN: 0743291484
Salesrank: 3932
Weight:0.75 lbs
Published: 2008 Simon & Schuster
Amazon price $10.20
Marketplace:New from $6.95:Used from $4.80
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Amazon.co.uk info
Paperback 400 pages  
ISBN: 0099509792
Salesrank: 14266
Weight:0.84 lbs
Published: 2009 Arrow Books Ltd
Amazon price £5.71
Marketplace:New from £3.74:Used from £1.48
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Amazon.ca info
Paperback 416 pages  
ISBN: 0743291484
Salesrank: 8622
Weight:0.75 lbs
Published: 2008 Simon & Schuster
Amazon price CDN$ 12.64
Marketplace:New from CDN$ 7.39:Used from CDN$ 8.63
Buy from Amazon.ca






Product Description
From the bestselling author of The Know-It-All comes a fascinating and timely exploration of religion and the Bible.

Raised in a secular family but increasingly interested in the relevance of faith in our modern world, A.J. Jacobs decides to dive in headfirst and attempt to obey the Bible as literally as possible for one full year. He vows to follow the Ten Commandments. To be fruitful and multiply. To love his neighbor. But also to obey the hundreds of less publicized rules: to avoid wearing clothes made of mixed fibers; to play a ten-string harp; to stone adulterers.

The resulting spiritual journey is at once funny and profound, reverent and irreverent, personal and universal and will make you see history's most influential book with new eyes.

Jacobs's quest transforms his life even more radically than the year spent reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica for The Know-It-All. His beard grows so unruly that he is regularly mistaken for a member of ZZ Top. He immerses himself in prayer, tends sheep in the Israeli desert, battles idolatry, and tells the absolute truth in all situations - much to his wife's chagrin.

Throughout the book, Jacobs also embeds himself in a cross-section of communities that take the Bible literally. He tours a Kentucky-based creationist museum and sings hymns with Pennsylvania Amish. He dances with Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn and does Scripture study with Jehovah's Witnesses. He discovers ancient biblical wisdom of startling relevance. And he wrestles with seemingly archaic rules that baffle the twenty-first-century brain.Jacobs's extraordinary undertaking yields unexpected epiphanies and challenges. A book that will charm readers both secular and religious, The Year of Living Biblically is part Cliff Notes to the Bible, part memoir, and part look into worlds unimaginable. Thou shalt not be able to put it down.

 
Living Biblically Only When It's Convenient **
A lot of hype. Author chose a concept and title that would interest many people (and make him money), but the substance from his year's quest is shallow and lacking.
 
Review of Jacobs' 'Living Biblically' ****
Here is an intimate, personal exploration of Judeo-Christian spirituality in the modern world. It lacks the sanctimonious attitude of many similar examinations by fundamentalists or the atheists who criticize them. It is a thoroughly agnostic experiment. The work's personal touch is something of an added bonus. This book could have succeeded without the author's telling portrait of his relationship with his wife, but her presence certainly improves the work.

I wish this book would have undergone more thorough editing. The 'Year' reads too much like a diary; I would have preferred a more reflective work on the results of Jacobs' experience. What he offers is a day-by-day of his adventures. This works, but it isn't as smart as a post-year analysis. Such an analysis could have brought better organization to the book.
 
Insightful and humorous *****
I loved A.J. Jacobs's Know It All and bought this book. The beginning is a bit slow but I grew to like it more and more. He keeps up his dry and humorous style. I learned a lot more about religion than I thought. It was a great fun read.
 
An entertaining read. *****
I read this book reluctanly. My son told me it was good. I really thought the cover didn't do it justice. But I read the book in about 2 days because I couldn't put it down. The author is a great writer that brings the person into his life. He is hilarious and I found myself reading so many passages outloud to my husband.

An entertaining read.
 
Terrific read! *****
I am still reading this enlightening book! It's funny and its scholarly. I am impressed with the amount of time and effort that went into research for this book! If you are a person still seeking to know God, this read is definitely for you. It will make you smile and it will make you think. Enjoy!
 
Entertaining and interesting -- but more sociological than spiritual ****
So you've devoted an entire year to reading the Encyclopedia Britannica in its entirety and writing about the experience. What do you do for an encore? Sticking with the book theme, it seems almost natural to turn your attention to the most important book ever written. So it is that A.J. Jacob devotes another full year of his life to the Bible - not only does he set out to read the Good Book, he makes plans to follow its teachings as literally as possible. Raised in a secular Jewish family, he is curious to know if his year of living biblically will change him into a religious person. In my opinion, however, what he describes in this book is an intellectual journey, not a spiritual one.

Jacobs goes all out, trying to follow even the most obscure laws and prescriptions he can find in the Bible. It's a lot more work than just following the Ten Commandments. He chooses to follow the Old Testament for the first eight months, then devote the last four months to the New Testament. Apart from his own reading and research, he calls upon a number of different religious figures to help him understand all of the teachings and rituals. He grows a beard, takes to wearing white clothes consisting of no mixed fibers, blows a ram's horn at the start of each month, attaches fringes to his garments, paints words of scripture around his door frame, performs many more little rituals that have no real significance for him at all, etc. It causes many a hardship to him and his family (a wife, a two-year-old son, and as the months pass, a set of twins on the way) - especially his long-suffering wife (being treated as unclean the week following Aunt Flo's monthly visit is not too popular with the women these days, for example). Over the course of the year, he has a number of unique experiences, travels to Israel, and seeks out guidance from both liberal and conservative followers of Judaism and Christianity. He learns a lot about himself in the process, but the key question is whether or not he will emerge from this grand experiment a changed man.

Inevitably, one's views of this book will greatly depend upon one's own religious beliefs. Atheists and agnostics will probably delight in all of the crazy Old Testament instructions he follows, while Jews and Christians will have their own interpretations, running the gamut from liberalism to fundamentalism. As a fundamentalist Southern Baptist (one religious affiliation Jacobs did not consult), it bothers me that Jacobs and many other individuals paint religious conservatism with such a wide brush of pre-judgment. We're not monsters; we just happen to interpret the Bible literally rather than picking and choosing the things we find convenient for our lifestyles and habits. We're slandered for believing we alone are right in our beliefs, yet that faith is what defines us. I don't believe Jacobs was completely open-minded in his approach, having to some degree prejudged Christian fundamentalists from the start.

From my perspective, if Jacobs really wanted to find God, he went about it exactly the wrong way. He can follow every rule he finds in the Bible, but it avails him nothing in the end because he never really seeks a personal connection with God, even in his approach to prayer. That is why I do not consider his journey to be a spiritual one at all. Jacobs doesn't even attend church on a weekly basis, although he does spend time with a number of different religious groups and leaders. Furthermore, his four months spent following the New Testament are nowhere near as intensive as the eight months he spent immersed in the Old Testament. In modern terms, Jesus makes little more than a cameo appearance in these pages, and the heart of the Gospel message itself is rather neglected.

The Year of Living Biblically is certainly interesting and entertaining, but I do not consider it very enlightening. Jacobs does gain some understanding of the religious experiences and beliefs of several groups of believers (some of which surprise him), but he never makes an effort to approach God in a personal, soul-searching way. Instead, he adopts this technical image of a Biblical lifestyle, a decidedly outward approach, and periodically wonders if it is working any changes in his internal, spiritual life. On the whole, I find the whole thing little more than a sociology project, dealing primarily with the reactions of friends, family, and strangers to his project and, in turn, his reactions to their reactions. Jacobs learns a lot about himself over the course of the year, but I do not think he succeeded in finding anything remotely profound.
 
Oh, no, not another of Jacobs' hare-brained schemes ****
Okay A.J. Jacobs is an inspirational guy. He read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica in a year and wrote a book about it entitled The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World (2004). I did my part and actually read the whole thing and wrote a glowing review. (See my review at Amazon.com) Reading this book I note that when A.J. was feeling particularly, shall we say, drifted he would do just that and go to Amazon and read reader's reviews of his books. So I know he read mine. But he didn't complement me on my wit and acumen, which would have been a Biblically correct sort of thing to do. Well...maybe.

Anyway, I also wrote a very nice review of Esquire Presents What It Feels Like (2003) which Jacobs edited. He is or was an editor at Esquire, and yes I should send him one of my short stories since he owes me, and maybe he has influence. In fact because of all the time I've spent reading his works, I should send him my TEN best short stories one after the other. Ha, ha, ha. Well, that would or would not accomplish anything, and besides this review is about living Biblically, God help us.

What Jacobs does is prep himself for this madcap year by reading all sorts of translations of the Good Book, by making a list of all sorts of rules he finds in God's Word, by consulting with rabbis and priests and such for interpretations of Biblical rules and what to take literally and what to take with the proverbial grain of salt. Then he gives us his adventures day by day, over three hundred pages worth, amid all sorts of Biblical people as his beard grows and grows and itches and itches while people stare at him and think he's weird. Well, he IS weird. And I don't even want to talk about the contradictions and the adroit way Jacobs handles them or the lies and lies and lies he notices that he tells. But that's okay because he's funny and because we all lie. A lot.

As he reads and writes he quotes various passages from the Bible and kind of works them out in his mind and tries to live them, more or less, and especially he shows us how other people are living or not living them. In a sense this is a cultural romp through all things Biblical including a visit to the Holy Land to tend sheep and later (again God help us) to Jerry Falwell land.

The bottom line here is chuckles and entertainment amidst a gentle, almost loving satire. And no sacred cows get slaughtered and no first born of Egypt get smote and Jacobs doesn't really stone anybody.
 
An excellent, light-hearted page-turner. *****
An engrossing, if light-hearted, novel.

A.J. Jacobs very much focuses on the Old Testament, for reasons explained in the novel, but with him being an agnostic with Jewish heritage his journey is compelling with an intriguing angle and, much like the Bible, offers something for all to relate to.

Critical reviews of this book suggest: he focuses on the Jewish element too heavily, offers a wishy-washy and haphazard approach to Bible law interpretation, ignores the controversial subjects.

In my opinion, his approach is agnostic (and being British I think a lot of my peers would share his mindset, as I do), with a hint of Judaism. I don't understand the criticisms - A.J. uses his heritage to portray his very much personal journey through the Bible. He uses his own opinions, experiences, prejudices in shaping his own hurdles when tackling issues.

For me, the interest lies in the relationship between his agnosticism and his attempts to 'buy-in' to the religious doctrine. If he were a devout Christian interpreting the Bible, the message, in my eyes, would have been diluted somewhat.

The novel is not an objective critique of the Bible and its laws (which is what some people seem to have expected). I found it a jovial look at the stumbling blocks of navigating through a staggering number of laws where 'mixed fibre' laws share as many column inches as 'homosexuality' (this example might be wrong, but is an example of the type of fact on offer - some more ridiculous). At times the approach is haphazard, but the feat of trying to follow an irrefutably large and bloated list of laws is only matched by having to document a year of doing so in a novel.

The book doesn't avoid the controversial subjects such as abortion and homosexuality, but don't expect a 500-page objective polemic on these matters. His is a personal account of his attempts to decipher the laws of the Bible and the subsequent difficulties of fitting them in to modern day life. And it is meant to be amusing and entertaining, not prejudical, socially divisive, and controversial.

A.J. shouldn't be reading his own reviews any more if he's learnt anything.
 
Not so funny ***
Am still reading this very entertaining book recommended to me by my daughter in America. Must confess to finding it less amusing than most of your reviewers (apart from when his wife sat on all the chairs in the house to make them 'unclean', when I did laugh out loud). Like the author I am Jewish by birth but not inclination but some of his tasks, like not gossiping, made me think more about my own behaviour. Am just on the last chapters where he will look into the New Testament.

Not sure I like the style but am nevertheless very engrossed though sometimes irritated by his irrational and haphazard approach to living biblically.
 
3/4 of a year living in the old testament **
The premise of this book was interesting, but other than allowing the author to reconnect with his jewish heritage it seemed to fall far short of its intended aims. The vast majority of this book deals with just the old testament and even when he moves onto the new, most of it still deals with old testament ideals and laws. He goes into detail about how jesus overturned the need for following the laws of the old testament, but then decides it's still okay to follow them, and seems to ignore the new in favour of the old even in it's own section.

While he does go into a good level of detail in the old testament he continually seems to avoid following those laws that would make this book interesting. How to live morally in a modern society when it's commanded to kill, insult, or maim all manner of peoples with different cultural, religous, or sexual lifestyles. He takes the disappointing cop out of turning to rabbinical interpretations and seems to gloss over the fact that many of these laws are barbaric and unjust.

Whenever there is a time in which mainstream laws seem barbaric he goes to great lengths to justify them in some cases. He also goes out of his way to make religious extremists seem nice and normal people no matter that they choose to interpret the bible in ways that frequently damages minorities and society as a whole. The only people he seems to have little time for is the small number of atheists in this book. While snake handlers in Tennessee are treated reverentially, and samaritans who force menstruating females to live in a separate part of the house quarantined from those who are "spiritually clean" they are a discordant bunch and the meeting is describes as an attempt to herd cats. When people give him malicious stares in public, they are obviously atheists, and when someone shouts at him it's obviously someone who has just finished a book by Richard Dawkins. For someone who spent so much time tolerating different religious groups its surprising how all atheists are lumped together as rude, nose in the air followers of Dawkins.

Don't expect this book to be more than it is ( a wish washy novel on how to slant you views towards jewish culture, and the old testament, and the cognitive dissonance necessary to be tolerated in society as you do so), and perhaps you will enjoy it more than I. I was expecting a book that focused on both testaments that showed more of a historical bent to religion and made an effort to explore what sort of society should not suffer a witch to live or allow man to lie with man as he would a woman.
 
HIghly Recommended *****
This book, without a doubt, delivers exactly what you're looking for when purchasing a memoir from a humourist. There is absolutely nothing lacking...except more pages.
I've read all books available from Mr. Jacobs. This was my first, then I read The Know-It-All (which, by the way, is a home-run as well).
When reading this, you feel as though you are becoming personally acquainted with him, from the minutia of everyday life to the more grand and wider scoping ideas and musings we normally save for our nearest and dearest. I'm not one who is radically interested in celebrities of any sort beit singer, actor, writer, artist - but if I saw AJ Jacobs out and about (which would be unlikely since I live in Northwestern Ontario), I would immediately ask him where his wife Julie is and could she join me for dinner...I feel like I've got my fill of him through his book(s) but with his wife who is more than a secondary character...she's the backbeat of it all...I feel like I want to know her because she'd be as entertaining as hell (just like her hubby).
 
An amazing interactive book! *****
I read this book from cover to cover in the emergency room. I am a seminary student and heard a lot of bashing when the book was extremely popular. I read it, and it brought back the feeling of experiencing and appreciating God in all aspects of life for the first time. I wrote A.J. to tell him how I felt and he replied Christmas morning. So much for respecting a holy day! Amazing book. Fun Read. Buy it immediately!
 
A New Perspective *****
As a pastor, I'm always trying to find my own path through the thicket of rules and commandments of the Bible and I was very grateful to my friend who suggested this book. I finished it yesterday and was both surprised and understanding when A.J. came to his final conclusions. I have long preached that there is a difference between rules ("religion") and faith ("relationship"), but I have also maintained that rules, be they found the Law or wherever, can lead one *to* a relationship so long as they are not being used in place of the relationship itself. The quest is not so much to follow the rules as to find God through and behind them, and I think that this became clearer as the year went on.

Read this book, and take something from it - not the fringes, not the beard (which my wife and daughter have also forbidden, incidentally), but the One one is seeking to approach through the practices and through the Word of God.
 
The Year of Living Biblically... *****
This is by far the funniest book I have ever read. I love A.J. Jacobs writing style, and I truly appreciate the efforts he made with this book. He opened up his life to the reader and shared himself completely.

(I have to also say that his wife must be just about the most supporting and understanding young lady out there....)

The Year of Living Biblically makes learning about the bible interesting. Fun. Laugh out loud and run to share with your friends fun. More than once I found myself thinking, "He's not really going to...oh, he really did...."

In a good way, though....
 
Very Entertaining *****
I found this book to be very entertaining and informative at the same time. The author did an great job combining humour and religious tolerance. I found out about a lot of quirky things that I did not know existed in the Bible. I enjoyed the author's journey.

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