The Year of Living Biblically (2007)
By A.J. Jacobs
Simon & Schuster, 332 pages.
★★★
Why review a 2007 book? Because the author has a new book called A Year if Living Constitutionally. Each format is the same: A. J. Jacobs applies a literal reading of revered documents. The subtitle of The Year of Living Biblically is: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible.
Jacobs, a senior editor of Esquire, spent eight months using the Old Testament and four with the New Testament. As a Jew, Jacobs has more familiarity with the Old Testament, plus an ultra-orthodox ex-uncle in Israel who is the family pariah. Much of what Jacobs does is amusing. For example, he uses the Old Testament to justify pinning tassels on his clothing, wearing white, and allowing his beard to grow without trimming it. You can imagine the reaction of subway riders to a sane, quiet, bearded, white-robe-wearing sandal-clad New Yorker in February!
Much of what Jacobs tries are rules laid out in Exodus and Leviticus. There is a prohibition against mixing fibers in one's clothing, so he hires an expert to make sure that there is no stray polyester or wool in a cotton garment. He also uses straps to wrap tefillin on his arms and head, buys a small shofar to blow the first of each month, and learns to play the 10-string harp specified in the Old Testament. What about Old Testament rules on women who are menstruating? When he gets change from his coffee, he asks the female clerk to place it on the counter so he won’t touch a woman who might be having her monthly. (His wife Julie is not amused.)
There are things dictated by the Bible that forbidden by law in modern society. Jacobs resorts to creative work arounds for Old Testament teachings such as death to adulterers, homosexuals, Sabbath breakers, or those who strike their parents. Jacobs’ son Jasper once got angry and hit his father. Clearly he’s not going to kill Jasper, but how does he get past the command to not spare the rod on a rebellious son? A nerf noodle! That didn't work very well because Jasper found it great fun to smack people with said noodle. For the command to be fruitful and multiply he and Julie resorted to in vitro fertilization for the twins she carried. He ate boiled vegetables at conferences because Jews allegedly did not eat meat until after Moses and seized upon the biblical suggestion to eat locusts–sort of. He sent away for expensive chocolate-covered edible bugs.
The Christian part of the book is more of a drive by than a deep dive into the New Testament, but he did visit the Amish, “Red Letter” progressives seeking to be true to the words of Jesus, and even attended a snake handler service. He found it and other things beyond belief, especially a creationist museum in Kentucky. Surprisingly he attended a Jerry Falwell service that he found “bland and boring.”
Jacobs called our attention to the parts of the Bible that are probably cultural, not commands from the Creator. He describes the endless battle between “ritual and mythos.” Sometimes he does this by taking things to their logical extreme. What does one do with the command thou shalt not steal when your two-year-old likes to pilfer straws from Starbucks? Can you get around the ritual command of not touching pigskin by rationalizing that footballs are no longer made from pigs?
The book’s biggest takeaway is that no one agrees whether the Bible should be taken literally, figuratively, or a combination of the two. Jacobs admits being a very skeptical agnostic when he started his experiment but ending as a “reverent “agnostic. He found prayer comforting even though he isn’t sure anyone is listening and found a practical metaphor in the Old Testament command to embrace lepers by projecting it onto AIDS patients. It probably won't surprise you to learn that the group who lived the closest to the Bible are the Amish.
The book's biggest drawback is that the concept is funnier and more pointed than the writing. Jacobs, like documentarians such as Michael Moore and Wer ner Herzog, places himself at the center of things to the point of annoyance. There was no question though, that his is a great concept. You don't need to read the whole thing, but dipping in and out is eye opening. Unless you’re a literalist!
Rob Weir
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