Author: AJ Jacobs (he narrates the audiobook)
Year published: 2008
Category: Adult nonfiction (memoir)
Pages: 416 pages
Rating: 4 out of 5
Location: (my 2025 Google Reading map): USA (NY) and Israel
Summary: Raised in a secular family but increasingly interested in the relevance of faith in our modern world, A.J. Jacobs decides to dive in headfirst and 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 play a ten-string harp; 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’s quest transforms his life even more radically than the year spent reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica for The Know-It-All. His beard grows so unruly that he is regularly mistaken for a member of ZZ Top. He immerses himself in prayer, tends sheep in the Israeli desert, battles idolatry, and tells the absolute truth in all situations—much to his wife’s chagrin.
Throughout the book, Jacobs also embeds himself in a cross-section of communities that take the Bible literally. He tours a Kentucky-based creationist museum and sings hymns with Pennsylvania Amish. He dances with Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn and does Scripture study with Jehovah’s Witnesses. He discovers ancient biblical wisdom of startling relevance. And he wrestles with seemingly archaic rules that baffle the twenty-first-century brain.
Jacobs’s extraordinary undertaking yields unexpected epiphanies and challenges. A book that will charm readers both secular and religious, The Year of Living Biblically is part Cliff Notes to the Bible, part memoir, and part look into worlds unimaginable. Thou shalt not be able to put it down.
Review: Most readers of this blog know that I am not a religious person, so you're probably surprised to see this book review on my blog. My in-person book group chose it, and I was promised that it is a funny book. And it's nonfiction. In November. Perfect.
I listened to this book and enjoyed it. It is funny, thoughtful, and interesting. I think it took on even more significance for me since we are in a resurgence of the Christian nationalists in the US who are using Christianity to justify horrible (in my opinion) decisions regarding helping the poor, civil rights, etc. The racism and misogyny are rampant. For me, Christianity teaches the opposite, and it was interesting to read about the author's experience of thinking through the "rules" of the Bible in a modern society.
One of the points that comes through loud and clear is how those who say they believe certain things because it says so in the Bible (views on homosexuality are the most obvious), choose to then ignore so many other laws and suggested beliefs. There are thoughtful moments in this memoir (for example, when the author learns to pray) and also humorous moments (how is he supposed to stone an adulterer when faced with them?!).
Having the author narrate the audio book was nice as I really felt like he was enjoying the reading process.
Challenges for which this counts:
- Bookish--all about the Bible
- Cover Love--Famous landmark
- Diversity--religions different from my own
- Literary Escapes--Israel
- Nonfiction
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