Total Page : 416
Publisher : Simon Schuster
Publication Date : 2008 09 09
>> Insert Witty Title Here
I should probably start this review by saying I am not a Christian I am a self proclaimed Neo pluralist and I don t know what it means either I have a healthy curiosity about Christianity but every time I try to satisfy this curiosity I am bombarded on all sides with so much contradictory information that I can t even think straight So I picked up The Year of Living Biblically with high hopes Thankfully I was not let down The author is for all intents and purposes a non practicing jew at the start of the book and brings a Complete Idiots Guide style introduction to both Judaism and Christianity in a humorous way that is somehow funny and entertaining without being too disrespectful which continues throughout the book as he attempts to follow every rule in the bible as literally as possible He speaks to a number of specialists from various religions including a man who makes it his job to analyze closets for mixed fiber clothing since the bible forbids wearing such things but he gets most of his information from the bible itself I think this is a fantastic read for anyone even moderately interested in Christianity or what the bible really has to say on a lot of different subjects It s a fun experiment of boiling the most popular book of all time back down to it s original context with as little bias as possible something that s damn near impossible to find anywhere And Mr Jacobs if this review comes up in a google search of yourself you can t deny them we all know now I just want to say Good job
>> Witty Honest and Totally Unexpected
So sue me I expected this book to suck I have no great love for religion but even I don t like to see it callously mocked by clowns seeking their fifteen minutes of fame to borrow Andy Warhol s language The premise of the book seemed like prime exploitation material what would it be like to follow ALL of the Bible s laws for a year without picking and choosing and with that terrible dustcover depicting someone presumably Mr Jacobs dressed like a biblical prophet but also holding a coffee and looking rather indignant before the Lord it seemed locked and ready to milk its obligatory number of cheap laughs at the Bible s expense
And it does do that Sometimes But it is much more than that And it usually ties the archaic wackiness into some relevant self reflection
I think what really caught me off guard about this book initially was the honesty of it Mr Jacobs is not a hack but he is not a saint either He can t help but laugh at several of the seemingly ridiculous laws in the Bible He is witty but also frequently barbed in his wit which frequently causes him to lose control of a situation He checks Amazon com reviews of his books and gets upset at the negative ones So he is definitely a flawed personality But aren t we all The interesting thing is that the more humble you are the less humble you try to present yourself as Humble people know fully all of their blemishes and his full blooded portrayal of his secular big city life is simultaneously one of the most humble and one of the most honest accounts written by a person about their own lives that I have ever read Any man who is so honest with himself cannot have written an entirely bad book And so after a single chapter in I was no longer expecting to actively hate the rest of the book
I cannot say that it is a perfect book and yet it is still a very good book Primarily this is due to the transformation which overtakes the author as he tries living a more and more godly life His primary goal with the book was admittedly to show that one cannot fully and perfectly follow all of the different rules in the Bible without picking and choosing Well he does do that beautifully The Bible is simply not the perfect and pristine work that many fundamentalists think it is And yet the book takes on a second aspect that gives real weight to the ensuing wackiness and that being that the author s fundamentally secular and detached viewpoint is shaken and transformed during his year of living biblically He acknowledges this up front he begins and then ends the year as very different people He does not stay a biblical zealot of course but you might say he finds his mind opened to a spiritual awareness which lends more significance to his life He is no longer as vapid and materialistic as when he began the project This gradual change ultimately makes the events of the book feel much more significant than they otherwise might have been Even if everything he did during that year was ridiculous and I don t think everything was he ended the year a better person
If the book has any major weakness I would argue that it is the sheer episodic nature of much of the book What you read is fun witty and often meaningful but there never seems to be any kind of progression or flow This is perhaps unavoidable given that the book is structured as a kind of journal with an entry being logged at least every other day Perhaps this is better than the alternative life is not a novel and rarely do the days have any kind of narrative flow Life is lived one day at a time and that is exactly the perspective from which we view the author s journey one day at a time Undoubtedly he changed some things around so as not to make the book too uneven I believe he even says as much in the book but otherwise the account comes across as extremely believable
This is a funny book It is one of those laugh out loud books and the laughs are plentiful I would often read an amusing passage around my family and as stated these aren t hard to come by only to be greeted with bursts of hysterical laughter and nodding heads His reflections on his son Jasper in particular were often exceedingly adorable and remind me of my own relationship with my sweet toddler nephew
There are a number of remarkable episodes in this book with some of my favorites revolving around his experience with creationists His account is hilarious and about as fair and balanced as it gets He doesn t believe a word of what these people say but they are not the drooling raving fanatics he had perhaps expected to encounter and indeed they are portrayed as flawed but fully real and human people He admirably manages to leave ideology almost entirely out of his account Same goes for an amusing detour to a small atheist group which comes off more as a harmless group therapy session than a meeting of Bloodthirsty Godless Heathens I don t like his insinuations that unbelievers don t confront the big questions in their lives not all unbelievers are shallow urbanites after all but I m not sure much weight should be attached to the arrogant thoughts he occasionally reports during his book
There were some moments particularly after a more profound episode that I would get frustrated with his going back to follow superficially some other ridiculous biblical rule and wish that he would have introduced more historical context into many of his discussions although what is present is fascinating but none of this was bad enough to prevent my enjoyment of the book
A fair note of warning despite the tendency to automatically associate the Bible with Christianity most of this book comes from the point of view of Orthodox Judaism which makes sense considering the vast majority of the rules are in the old testament Given my familiarity with Christianity though this was good for me as it provided a window into what was and still is really the alien culture of Judaism
Overall not perfect but great Great enough to be a five star book in my estimation This was a memorable reading experience and I have the feeling that I ll be pulling it off the bookshelf often
>> Loved this book
This book was fantastic It was thought provoking and laugh out loud funny I couldn t put it down A J Jacobs is a wonderful writer and what a great idea to spend a year living this way That is it is a great idea unless you are his wife I would have been pushed over the edge His wife must be an incredibly patient and tolerant woman
I have already bought several copies of this book and will be buying more to give as gifts
