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The Year of Living Biblically

by A. J. Jacobs

Other authors: See the other authors section.

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3,0161511,728 (3.84)191
2007 (13) 2008 (35) 2009 (16) A. J. Jacobs (10) American (11) autobiography (23) Bible (167) biography (58) Christian Living (14) Christianity (101) ebook (13) experiments (10) faith (13) fundamentalism (17) humor (309) Jewish (15) Judaism (102) library (14) memoir (232) New York (12) non-fiction (381) Old Testament (15) read (41) read in 2008 (30) read in 2009 (14) religion (376) sociology (12) spirituality (34) to-read (43) unread (20)
  1. 60
    The Know-It-All by A. J. Jacobs (schatzi)
    schatzi: this is the author's first book; his exploits in "The Know-It-All" are sometimes referred to in "The Year of Living Biblically"
  2. 50
    The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University by Kevin Roose (kiwiflowa)
    kiwiflowa: Kevin Roose was A.J. Jacobs college intern for this book and decided to do a similar experiment. He enrolled for a semester at the Christian fundamentalist college Liberty University founded by Jerry Falwell.
  3. 30
    The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun by Gretchen Rubin (ansate)
    ansate: similar thoughtful project. turns out they share a writers group!
  4. 00
    En avant, route ! by Alix de Saint-André (yokai)
    yokai: Deux expériences différentes dans le domaine de la religion.
  5. 00
    My Jesus Year: A Rabbi's Son Wanders the Bible Belt in Search of His Own Faith by Benyamin Cohen (elvisettey)
    elvisettey: Another author-experiment, this one by an Orthodox Jew who decides to immerse himself in Christianity for a year in order to strengthen his own faith.
  6. 00
    Municipal Bondage: One Man's Anxiety-Producing Adventures in the Big City by Henry Alford (reenum)
  7. 00
    No Impact Man: The Adventures of a Guilty Liberal Who Attempts to Save the Planet, and the Discoveries He Makes About Himself and Our Way of Life in the Process by Colin Beavan (Deesirings)
    Deesirings: Both of these are a memoir of a "rules-based" experience of living for a one year period
  8. 34
    Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen by Julie Powell (amyblue)
  9. 01
    Big Kiss: One Actor's Desperate Attempt to Claw His Way to the Top by Henry Alford (reenum)
  10. 02
    In the Land of Believers by Gina Welch (Percevan)
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English (146)  German (2)  Dutch (1)  French (1)  Finnish (1)  All languages (151)
Showing 1-5 of 146 (next | show all)
Things I learned from A.J. Jacobs choosing to live Biblically:

1. Give wine to depressed people.
2. There are extremists everywhere.
3. The Bible is all about interpretation. No one agrees on anything when it comes to the Bible.
4. Samaritans are real and have a similar belief system to Judaism.
5. Thomas Jefferson wrote his own version of the Bible...he edited away all the supernatural stuff and just kept Christ's moral teachings.
6. There are more versions of the Bible than would ever fit on my bookshelves.
7. The Bible is anti-winking...people that wink are apparently planning perversities...and winking is kind of creepy.

Groups I want to learn more about:
1. Answers in Genesis
2. Red-letter Christians
3. Evangelicals Concerned ( )
  melissarochelle | Apr 13, 2013 |
I'm not sure why I decided to read this, but I quite enjoyed A.J. Jacobs' account of his year-long attempt to grasp religion. It is generous and fair-minded but also honest and critical. Worth reading just for Jacobs' investigations of literalism, Jewish and Christian. And, he's funny--not strange, humorous funny. ( )
  nmele | Apr 6, 2013 |
I liked this book quite a lot, but did find towards the end that it started to drag slightly as the pace didn't vary much. Still, apart from the impressive madness / explanations of some of the weirder rules, and the fact that he did try a heck of a lot, what stuck with me was how in the end this feat did change him, to some extent. He ended up still agnostic, but as he refers to it a "reverent agnostic" - someone who pays care and attention to the world and the people around him, not just to his own thoughts and worries. ( )
  comixminx | Apr 5, 2013 |
I think I'd actually give this book 4.5 stars if that were possible. This memoir impressed me a lot, partly because A. J. Jacobs managed to write a book that seriously discusses the Bible, Biblical history, religion, and ethics that also manages to be honest and laugh-out-loud funny. I learned a lot about religion reading this book. Although there were times that I was a little annoyed because A. J.'s experiment seemed artificial to me, I do feel he genuinely took some life lessons and became a better and more spiritual person in spite of it.

Also worth noting -- I heard the author speak two days before finishing this book -- and he is funny in person as well.

Some quotes I really liked:

p. 172 "That's the paradox: I thought religion would make me live with my head in the clouds, but often as not, it grounds me in this world."

p. 220 "I'd always found the praising-God parts of the Bible and my prayer books awkward....It's so over the top....And why would God need to be praised in the first place? God shouldn't be insecure. He's the ultimate being. Now I can sort of see why. It's not for him. It's for us. It takes you out of yourself and your prideful little brain."

p. 316 "The Bible may not have been dictated by God, it may have had a messy and complicated birth, one filled with political agendas and outdated ideas -- but that doesn't mean the Bible can't be beautiful and sacred."

p. 328 "This year showed me beyond a doubt that everyone practices cafeteria religion. It's not just moderates. Fundamentalists do it too."

p. 329 "I now believe that whether or not there's a God, there is such a thing as sacredness. Life is sacred. The Sabbath can be a sacred day. Prayer can be a sacred ritual. There is something transcendent, beyond the everyday. It's possible that humans created this sacredness ourselves, but that doesn't take away from its power or importance.” ( )
  JillKB | Apr 4, 2013 |
This was a solid book - 3 1/2 stars, if possible. I love the book's premise, and was engaged throughout, but hoped to see more of the author's conversations with various religious "pros". But it left me feeling my brain had expanded and wanting to know more. I heartily recommend giving it a looksee.

( )
  annmariestover | Apr 4, 2013 |
Showing 1-5 of 146 (next | show all)
Performance art or not, this is a well-researched, informative and entirely absorbing read.
added by Katya0133 | editPeople, Jonathan Durbin
 
Jacobs's discussions with his advisers and with men representing other religions make up the most thoughtful and insightful sections of the book.
added by Katya0133 | editLibrary Journal, Joyce Sparrow
 
The author's determination despite constant complications from his modern secular life (wife, job, family, NYC) underscores both the absurdity of his plight and its profundity.
added by Katya0133 | editKirkus
 
If he starts out sounding like an interminable Ira Glass monologue, smarmy and name-dropping, he becomes much less off-putting as the year progresses, for he develops a serious conscience about such quotidian failings as self-centeredness, lying, swearing, and disparaging others.
added by Katya0133 | editBooklist, Ray Olson
 
Throughout his journey, Jacobs comes across as a generous and thoughtful (and, yes, slightly neurotic) participant observer, lacing his story with absurdly funny cultural commentary as well as nuanced insights into the impossible task of biblical literalism.
added by Katya0133 | editPublishers Weekly
 

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Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
A. J. Jacobsprimary authorall editionsconfirmed
Ross, Jonathan ToddNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
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As I write this, I have a beard that makes me resemble Moses.
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The Hebrew scriptures prescribe a tremendous amount of capital punishment. Think Saudi Arabia, multiply by Texas, then triple that.
At times--not all the time, but sometimes--the entire world takes on a glow of sacredness, like someone has flipped on a[n] unfathomably huge halogen lamp and made the universe softer, fuller, less menacing. (p.153)
All well and good, right?  The only thing is, this is not the God of the Israelites.  This is not the God of the Hebrew Scriptures.  That God is an interactive God.   He rewards people and punishes them.  He argues with them, negotiates with them, forgives them, and occasionally smites the.   The God of the Hebrew Scriptures has human emotions--love and anger.   (p.153)
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Amazon.com Amazon.com Review (ISBN 0743291484, Paperback)

Amazon Best of the Month, September 2007: Make no mistake: A.J. Jacobs is not a religious man. He describes himself as Jewish "in the same way the Olive Garden is an Italian restaurant." Yet his latest work, The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible, is an insightful and hilarious journey for readers of all faiths. Though no fatted calves were harmed in the making of this book, Jacobs chronicles 12 months living a remarkably strict Biblical life full of charity, chastity, and facial hair as impressive as anything found in The Lord of the Rings. Through it all, he manages to brilliantly keep things light, while avoiding the sinful eye of judgment. --Dave Callanan

Amazon.comSubtitled: "One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible," Jacobs, or A.J., as his two-year-old son calls him, does just that. It is likely that no one but A.J. Jacobs could have accomplished such a feat. After all, his last book, The Know-It-All, chronicles his reading of the entire Encyclopedia Brittanica, from A to Z. No one but a smart, witty, self-deprecating, nitpicky kinda guy would undertake two such daunting tasks, and complete them with grace, no pun intended.

Jacobs, a New York Jewish agnostic, decides to follow the laws and rules of the Bible, beginning with the Old Testament, for one year. (He actually adds some bonus days and makes it a 381-day year.) He starts by growing a beard and we are with him through every itchy moment. Jacobs is borderline OCD, at least as he describes himself; obsessing over possible dangers to his son, germs, literal interpretation of Bible verses, etc. He enlists the aid of counselors along the way; Jewish rabbis, Christians of every stripe, friends and neighbors.

In an open-minded way he also visits with atheists, Evangelicals Concerned (a gay group), Jerry Falwell, snake handlers, Red Letter Christians--those who adhere to the red letters in the Bible, those words spoken by Jesus Himself, and even takes a trip to Israel and meets Samaritans. Through it all, he keeps a healthy skepticism, but continues to pray and is open to the flowering of real faith. Jacobs is a knowledge junky, to be sure. He enjoys the lore he picks up along the way as much as any other aspect of his experiment. One of the ongoing schticks is his meeting with the shatnez tester, Mr. Berkowitz. He is the one who determines whether or not your clothes are made of mixed fibers, in keeping with the Biblical injunction not to wear wool and linen together. The two become friends and prayer partners, in only one of the unexpected results of this year.

In the end, he says, "I'm now a reverent agnostic. Which isn't an oxymoron, I swear. I now believe that whether or not there's a God, there is such a thing as sacredness. Life is sacred." Not a bad outcome. --Valerie Ryan

(retrieved from Amazon Thu, 03 Jan 2013 20:02:38 -0500)

(see all 3 descriptions)

Raised in a secular family but interested in the relevance of faith in our modern world, A.J. Jacobs decides to 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 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 embeds himself in a cross-section of communities that take the Bible literally: he tours a creationist museum and sings hymns with Amish; he dances with Hasidic Jews and does Scripture study with Jehovah's Witnesses. He wrestles with seemingly archaic rules that baffle the 21st-century brain, and he discovers ancient wisdom of startling relevance.… (more)

» see all 5 descriptions

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