Literally Living the Laws

A surprisingly good book is The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible by A. J. Jacobs. When I first heard about Jacobs' attempt to literally follow all the commands of the Bible, I was not impressed. It seemed like a gimmick. Then the book came out and got some decent reviews. Finally someone who is not really connected with any faith said they read it and found it interesting.

So I gave in and read it. First, it is generally categorized as "humor." I'm not sure it deserves that genre. It is funny, and Jacobs' witticisms are good. But it is much deeper than humor. It is a book that truly in its own way is a challenge to literalism in any of its forms, while, at the same time, coming to a positive appreciation of what a degree of literalism can do.

It starts fairly simply, as one would expect, as Jacobs begins to explore the world of faith, his own life has been that of a secular Jew. He seeks out a committee to help him consisting of all types of people with different points of view. He even has a "pastor out to pasture" which I kind of liked identifying with.

But you know that Jacobs is being serious about his quest. He is attempting to be as honest to the texts and laws as he could. Whether it's his former uncle on Israel or snake-handling Christians in the American south, he tries just about anything to find out what this thing called faith is all about.

In many ways the result is kind of like the old AA statement- "Bring the body, the mind will follow." No, he doesn't become a bearded, fringed Hasid at the end of the book. But he has found more about faith - and his own faith - than he would have guessed.

It is a good book. A year of following the Bible literally proves that it's harder than you think. It also proves that literalism is never completely literal. We all choose, we all interpret and guess. But Jacobs proves there's more to faith than following laws- but there's also more to faith than ignoring laws as well.