Originally published in 2007.

This is a pretty humorous read. I really enjoyed it. Some parts of it had me cracking up, and some parts had me yawning. He went full dress mode. He grew his hair all long and bushy and began to wear a sheet for clothing. Keep in mind his wife and kids were just along for the ride. They were not participating in his little adventure. ( )

I only read about half of this book, and then jumped to the final entries because our book club had our last discussion about this book tonight. Without that motivation, I probably won't go back and finish the entire book. The flaw in this book (which is significant given that I'm not going to finish because of it) is that I don't necessarily care what Jacobs did every single day. Some of it could have been usefully summarized. There are just too many other books on my to-read list that seem more pressing.

That said, I did appreciate Jacobs's take on and conclusions about biblical literalism. He is also an entertaining and thoughtful writer, and I wouldn't hesitate to read his other work. ( )

I particularly enjoyed this book because Jacobs, like me, grew up in a very secular environment with a quizzical view of the Bible and all things religious. I enjoyed his intellectual honesty, his sense of humour, his willingness to give credit to people whose views he doesn't necessarily share while being clear about where he stands. As always, I'm impressed with his wife's tolerance and ability to cope with his shenanigans.
There are a few poignant moments which show how the Bible can help in trying times and I was pleased by the conclusion: the Bible did transform him, if only by connecting him more meaningfully to his roots and giving him a new reverence for life. ( )

Just in case you're googling yourself, Mr. Jacobs.
https://www.lds.org/liahona/2012/03/why-do-we-need-prophets?lang=eng ( )

A few years ago an American journalist decided on a year-long project, to go biblically native. What would it be like to go to the source of Judaism and Christianity by following the commandments in the Bible as literally as possible.

Being a liberal, secular man in New York, the project probably started out as a way to ridicule the religious texts, but A.J. Jacobs take the projects seriously enough to quickly see that the texts are not as insane as common jokes make them seem, especially when it turns out that some of the strangest commandments are partly flawed translations to English.

The book is fun, interesting and still respectful. The author in the end wrote a book, an account day-by-day that describes the challenges and the people he met and I would say that it is not the strange commandments that turn out to be hardest (not shaving or cutting the corners of the hair is not very difficult) but the simplest things. Not lying, not jaywalking, not working on the sabbath. Those things are not even things that non-religious people object to in general, but a life-time of small white lies and pride and ambition puts the whole project in jeopardy.

My conclusion after reading the book is that it is not the texts that are flawed, but humans, and especially human interpretation of them. We have lost the historical context, we have lost the language (for instance, one part of the bible talks about specific kind of birds by name and we cannot know what birds they meant) and that means nobody can any longer read the bible with any certainty.

A fact that is not lost even on the orthodox fundamentalists. The difference is that they try very hard in face of uncertainty (and end up somewhere quite far from the original intention I think) while most close-to-secular Jews and Catholics and Protestants (and most likely Muslims which partly use the same texts though that aspect is not covered in the book) choose to ignore the "strangest" parts.

Would I recommend this book? Well, maybe. It's not a book you read from start to finish without being able to let it go, but I think it might be a nice "one page at a time" book for places where you spend short periods of time, because it is thinking about what is written that brings value, not the reading itself. Also, a warning, it is probably hard to meditate over religion for a year without it changing you and your relationships. ( )