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The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible

A.J. Jacobs

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Why we're reading this: Oh, so close to 5 stars. This book is not just hilarious, it is sort of a religious text in its own right…more
[close] Oh, so close to 5 stars. This book is not just hilarious, it is sort of a religious text in its own right. A tad like the "pray" part of "Love, Eat, Pray," but, of course, only satirically speaking (I think?)

Speaking seriously for a moment, Jacobs' journey was, in fact, a true religious quest. A trek toward what I don't actually know, but if GOD exists, then Jacobs may actually have come closer to HER/HIM or at least better understood where HE/SHE is coming from.

Okay, so I'm not sure what this book is about (can you tell?), but I truly enjoyed reading it and think it would be really interesting to think about or discuss.

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last updated Aug 23, 2012 05:46PM

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Feb 19, 2023 Julianna rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: biography-memoir, desert-island-keepers, religion-spirituality, entertainment, read-2023

Reviewed for THC Reviews
The Year of Living Biblically is, as the subtitle suggests, a chronicle of the author’s attempt to live out the Bible’s rules as literally as possible. After the success of his previous book, A. J. Jacobs was looking for another idea for a book project and alighted on this one for a few reasons. He identifies as a secular Jewish agnostic, describing himself as “Jewish in the same way that the Olive Garden is Italian,” which is to say, “not very.” Although he grew up secul Reviewed for THC Reviews
The Year of Living Biblically is, as the subtitle suggests, a chronicle of the author’s attempt to live out the Bible’s rules as literally as possible. After the success of his previous book, A. J. Jacobs was looking for another idea for a book project and alighted on this one for a few reasons. He identifies as a secular Jewish agnostic, describing himself as “Jewish in the same way that the Olive Garden is Italian,” which is to say, “not very.” Although he grew up secular with little knowledge of the Bible and didn’t really believe in God in any traditional sense, he’d become more interested in the role of religion in the modern world. Also, as a relatively new father, he wanted to give his son a choice about what he could believe when he was older, and needed to know what to tell him about the Bible. Hence, this project was born. Given just how many rules there are in the Bible, at first Mr. Jacobs thought perhaps he’d bitten off more than he could chew, but eventually he formulated a sensible plan on how to approach it, so that it wasn’t so overwhelming. He spent the first eight months focusing on the Old Testament, since that’s the part that most people of Jewish heritage follow. Then he spent the latter four months on the New Testament, exploring Christian beliefs. What resulted was a year-long spiritual journey that took him, not only to places right within his local community and home state of New York, but also to various locales throughout the United States, and even abroad to Israel. The insights he gained range from profound to humorous and are recorded in such a way that they should have broad appeal for both the religious and the non-religious.

I’ve had The Year of Living Biblically on my TBR pile for quite some time. I can’t recall now how I came across it, but I remember it sounding like it had some similarities to Rachel Held Evans’ A Year of Biblical Womanhood, a book that I’m very interested in but have yet to read at this point. I picked up The Year of Living Biblically this month because it was announced as the latest pick for my church book club, and since I haven’t attended in a while, I thought it would be a great way to jump back in. When I found out that the author was a secular Jewish agnostic and that the book was billed as being humorous, I was a little concerned that perhaps he’d be poking fun at the Bible and all it’s seemingly silly rules and regulations. However, I came away from reading it feeling that I shouldn’t have worried. While, as one might expect, many humorous situations arose from his attempts to follow the Bible literally, I felt that Mr. Jacobs actually took the project very seriously and treated this holy book with reverence. He also seemed to be genuine in his search for spiritual knowledge, employing what he referred to as his board of spiritual advisors, who came from a wide range of backgrounds and beliefs, both Jewish and Christian. He also chose to have conversations with people from farther ends of the spectrum that he might not have otherwise, such as the Amish, snake-handlers, and the people who run the creationist museum on the Christian side or the most Orthodox Hasids on the Jewish side, plus a little bit of everything in between. I felt this gave the book a very balanced feel. In addition to being an exploration of Judeo-Christian beliefs, it’s also part memoir, as the author discusses the things going on in his personal life (such as fatherhood and his and his wife’s efforts to have another child) and how this all relates to his project.

Mr. Jacobs has a very friendly and accessible writing style that makes for easy, entertaining reading, and I ultimately thought it was interesting to see the Bible through the eyes of someone who was basically discovering it for the first time, which gave it a fresh perspective. I appreciated his open-mindedness and that no matter how “out there” someone’s beliefs seemed to be, he always gave them the benefit of the doubt and usually came away from the encounters feeling like he’d learned something and that they weren’t as weird as they might seem at first glance. He also took the time to genuinely explore the reasons behind some of the Bible’s more strange and obscure rules rather than just writing them off as unimportant. And ultimately he was able to glean something from the experience and make some positive changes in his life. One of the reasons I was interested in reading this book is because there are a number of people in my life who believe that everything in the Bible should be taken literally—full-stop. However, I don’t agree with this belief and wanted to find a well-written book to help dispute these claims. After reading it, I think that The Year of Living Biblically qualifies. One of the big things that stood out to me was that no matter how adamant a religious group was that they were following the Bible literally, they were ultimately still cherry-picking, because it’s darn near impossible to follow every single rule and regulation to the absolute letter. So if nothing else, I’ve come away from reading this book, not only entertained, but also still firm in my belief that each of us has an individual responsibility for figuring out how best to interpret our holiest of books—the Bible. ...more

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