The Year of Living Biblically

The Year of Living Biblically

by A J Jacobs (Author)

Synopsis

Avoiding shellfish was easy. The stoning of adulterers proved a little more difficult - and potentially controversial. Was it enough to walk up to an adulterer and gently touch them with a stone? Even that could be grounds for accusations of assault, especially with female adulterers in Manhattan. So what's a good Bible-reading boy to do? Raised in a secular family but increasingly interested in the relevance of faith in our modern world, A.J. Jacobs decides to dive in head first and attempt to obey the hundreds of less-publicized rules. 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 immerses himself in prayer, tends sheep in the Israeli desert, fights idolatry, and tells the absolute truth in all situations - much to his wife's chagrin. His beard grows so unruly that he is mistaken for a member of ZZ Top. He tours a Kentucky-based Creationist museum, dances with Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn and studies scripture with Jehovah's witnesses. And he wrestles with the seemingly archaic rules that baffle the twenty-first century brain, yielding unexpected ephiphanies and challenges. A book that will charm readers secular and religious, "The Year Of Living Biblically" is part York Notes to the bible, part memoir, and part look into worlds unimaginable. Thou shalt not be able to put it down...

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 400
Edition: Reprint
Publisher: William Heinemann
Published: 07 Feb 2008

ISBN 10: 0434017116
ISBN 13: 9780434017119
Book Overview: In the hysterical follow-up to The Know-It-All, A J Jacobs tells the story of the year in which he attempted to follow every precept in the Bible, even where they contradicted each other...

Media Reviews
A. J. Jacobs has written about the Bible in a manner that is brilliantly funny but unerringly respectful, learned but goofy, deeply personal yet highly relevant. I am covetous and wish him smited. -- Mary Roach, Bestselling author of Spook and Stiff
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. -- Publishers Weekly (Starred)
A.J. Jacobs has written a - how else to put it? - Good Book. Let me take my review from the original, Psalm 2, verse 4: 'He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh.' And let me suggest that readers, whether they know their Bible or not, get to know A.J. Jacobs. But not in a biblical sense, please. - P.J. O'Rourke
The Year of Living Biblically is an extremely compelling book, appropriately irreverent and highly entertaining. More significantly, it is a tale of an intense and intelligent spiritual search that will speak powerfully and instructively to a generation of seekers. - Rabbi David Ellenson, president of Hebrew Union College
Seeing that most people violate at least three of the ten commandments on their way to work -- even people who work from home -- says a lot about the scale of A. J.'s feat. The fact that you need to buy six copies of this book to unlock the code to save all humanity...well, that's just pure genius. -- Ben Karlin, cocreator of The Colbert Report and coauthor of America: The Book
A book that is at one and the same time delightfully readable and profoundly memorable is a wonder! The Year of Living Biblically is exactly that. A. J. Jacobs has perceived the distinction between the wisdom of the Bible and its absurdities. It is a shame that so many of both our clergy and our politicians seem incapable of making that distinction. -- John Shelby Spong, author of Jesus for the Non-Religious and former Episcopal bishop
Setting out to explore the consequences of strict adherence to biblical laws, A. J. Jacobs encounters a series of experiences that are as hilarious as they are thought-provoking. Along the way he teaches us both the fallacies of modern day religious fundamentalism and the joys of discovering the transcendent and timeless truths of faith. -- Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., director, Human Genome Project, author of The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief
A.J. Jacobs is so funny he can make watching his beard grow hilarious. The Year of Living Biblically is the most unexpectedly delightful - and consistently charming - book I've read in a long time. It will have you laughing out loud, nodding in disbelief, and rethinking what you believe about the Bible. It will also have you tallying your sins: I coveted his humor and envied his facial hair. And that's no lie. - Bruce Feiler, author of Walking the Bible and Where God Was Born
In the twenty-first century few, if any, Christians truly attempt to follow the Bible in its literal entirety, even us evangelicals. In this yearlong experiment A.J. Jacobs attempts just that, with disarming sincere, refreshingly humorous, and unexpectedly insightful results. I commend this inspired narrative to anyone actively exploring the continued relevance of biblical living, religion's need for critical self-reflection, and the timelessness of authentic faith. - Reverend Jim Wallis, author of God's Politics and president of Sojourners/Call to Renewal
As a man incapable of developing any facial hair aside from a really amazingly cruddy moustache, I would have bought this book for the astonishing big beard chronicle alone. That The Year of Living Biblically grows, beardlike, into a long, hilarious, tangled, and ultimately moving story of spiritual growth is all the more astonishing. But why should I continue to be surprised at what springs from A. J.'s head? He is a brilliantly hilarious writer who truly lives up to that oft-misused adverb/adjective combination and then some. Plus: HE IS GOING TO HEAVEN. So how can you not afford to tithe your salary to his cause and buy this book? -- John Hodgman, Daily Show correspondent and author of Areas of My Expertise
Author Bio
A. J. Jacobs is the editor of What It Feels Like and the author of The Two Kings: Jesus and Elvis, America Offline, Fractured Fairy Tales, and most recently, The Know It All. He is a senior editor of Esquire and lives in New York City with his wife Julie.