The Year of Living Biblically

This week I finished reading The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible by A.J. Jacobs.

I loved this book. I love the idea of the experiment, and I can relate to the issues he sees in the Bible:

. . . one of the biggest mysteries of the Bible. How can these ethically advanced rules and these bizarre decrees be found in the same book? And not just the same book. Sometimes the same page. The prohibition against mixing wool and linen comes right after the command to love your neighbor. It's not like the Bible has a section called "And Now for Some Crazy Laws." They're all jumbled up like a chopped salad.

During the course of the year, he tries to keep all the rules in the Bible (over seven hundred) but since it is too hard to focus on seven hundred things at once, he makes different commands the focus for a period of time. He tries to alternate the bizarre with the more mainstream.

He also comes up with the five Most Perplexing Rules:

• admonition to chop off the hand of a woman who grabs her husband's opponent's privates during a fight
• ban on wearing clothes of mixed fibers
• capital punishment
• circumcision
• rule to purify oneself by finding a red heifer

Jacobs spends the first 8 months focusing on the Hebrew Bible and the last four months focusing on the New Testament. Along the way, he talks with people from a variety of religious traditions.

An affirmed agnostic and skeptic, he tries to be open-minded, although not always successfully:

[speaking of the creationist book Noah's Ark: A Feasibility Study] The book is beautifully argued--and I don't believe a syllable of it. Which I know is counter to my quest. I had told Mark the publicist that I was coming in with an open mind, but while down there, I realize my mind won't open that far. I can understand being open to the existence of God and the beauty of rituals and the benefits of prayer. But the existence of a juvenile brontosaurus on the ark? And an earth that's barely older than Gene Hackman? I have to go with 99 percent of scientists on this one.

I also related to his reaction to Jacob and Esau:

The story of Jacob and Esau provides a classic example of the gap between, on the one hand, what the Bible literally says, and, on the other, the centuries-old layers of interpretation that have built up around those words.
If you read the Bible cold, as if you'd been raised on one of Jupiter's moons, you would, I'd wager, have this reaction: Jacob is a conniving scoundrel. And Esau, though maybe not a Mensa member, got a raw deal.

In summary, it's a great book. You should read it.