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Nabaza.net-The MarketPlace - The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible
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List Price: $25.00
Our Price: $16.50
Your Save: $ 8.50 ( 34% )
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Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 220
EAN: 9780743291477
ISBN: 0743291476
Label: Simon & Schuster
Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 400
Publication Date: 2007-10-09
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Studio: Simon & Schuster
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Editorial Reviews:
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From the bestselling author of The Know-It-All comes a fascinating and timely exploration of religion and the Bible.
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.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: fascinating look at the Bible
Comment: I get highly frustrated at people who think their view of the Bible is the ONLY correct one, that EVERYTHING in the Bible is true and the literal "write this down" word from God's mouth. I think that's why I love this book so much -- because in addition to being hilarious, Jacobs points out all sorts of silly, absurd, and random selections from the Bible. And he does so without being offensive or crass or mean -- just presents a passage and then gets to "Huh. So what does this mean?" He consults a variety of spiritual advisors and reads MANY MANY books to help find answers. He presents all sorts of fun trivia tid-bits and potential explainations to try to make sense of the oddness.
At its core, the process for this book was maybe a bit more excessive and random than, say, just writing an in-depth scholarly summarization of Biblical literalism would have been. But this is SO much more fun.
I'm going to read this book again just as soon as I can steal it back from my best friend, who tried to take it before I was even done reading it! (She obviously needs to brush up on commandment #8.)
Customer Rating:
Summary: Fast and interesting read
Comment: My mom's library book club was reading this book. One day while at her house, I opened it up and read the first 20 pages. I was hooked. The concept alone, of someone deciding to spend an entire year living according to the Bible, was interesting enough. However, the author's subtle sense of humor adds to the enjoyment of the book. It was a very quick and easy read. Unlike some, who would have used this same concept to create a book that slams you with heavy-handed religious lectures, he shares every day successes and failures in his quest. Reading his book actually made me want to be a better person; it made me want to do better at following some of the more mainstream Bible directives such as not lying about anything, doing more to honor your parents, trying to do more good deeds for strangers, etc. I highly recommend this book. I plan on looking up other books by this author.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Funny and insightful
Comment: The author has a very keen sense of humor and did a great job of portraying a complicated subject. I've been a moderate Christian my whole life and I really learned a lot from this book, both about variations of my own religion as well as Judaism. I also just flat out enjoyed reading it. I appreciated his candor in stating his biases and his attempts to overcome them. Most of all I enjoyed his dry wit, it made the book eminently readable. I look forward to going out and getting "Know it All".
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Summary: Funny and Poignant - Highly Recommended!
Comment: I really loved this book, and I'm not just saying that so the author's dad won't flag my review as unhelpful. : ) I appreciate Jacob's efforts to challenge himself by actually living a different life rather than just writing about one. It takes a lot of courage to expand one's worldview and admit that previous viewpoints might have been faulty or at least, ill-considered. At the same time, the year of living biblically allows the author to explore his past - not just his own past, but his familial and ancestral past. This lets the reader feel that she's in on an introspective search that provided meaning and was worthwhile for the author, which I consider a gift.
The book is very funny, and who doesn't love humor? But more than that, it challenged me to open my mind to the benefits of religion. While I won't be embarking on an effort quite like the author's, the book reminded me of the value of thinking about and rethinking my place in the world and how I want to proceed through it.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Not as Literal as He Says
Comment: This book is hilariously funny. That's the good news. The bad news...don't read it unless you are open to other viewpoints. Otherwise, it will make you mad. The author decided to take an entire year and attempt to live all of the Bible in the most literal way possible. As is the Bible, the first two-thirds are devoted to the Old Testament and the latter third to the New. The OT section is great. It's a laugh-a-thon as he tries to live and OT life in modern New York. The funniest sections involve how his wife works around his project. The NT section is not as great, partly because he mixes in too much OT, without concentrating wholly on the NT. The New Testament is about giving one's life to Jesus, but Jacobs never goes that far.
Sadly, Jacobs goes into the project with his own mindsets intact, instead of opening himself up completely to new ideas. Two great examples are the issues of creation and homosexuality. His thinking is basically this, he believes in science and has gay friends, therefore skip that section on the literal interpretation. If he believes that way, fine. But the project was to immerse himself in a literal interpretation. He does cover himself in the end by preaching his view that a cafeteria-style religion is best for everyone. In other words, just take what you like from God's word and discard the rest, a New Age philosophy that denounces any belief in the sacred word. The main problem with his cafeteria belief is that if you take something from the buffet line that he doesn't approve of, then you've gone too far. Isn't that always the way it is- any person with more standards than you is a legalist, ultra-conservative, hyper-fundamentalist and anyone with fewer standards than you is a liberal wack-job.
With all that said, buy the book for a few laughs, but expect some of it to make you mad.
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