1 of 3
We've all seen the email: a letter to a fundamentalist pastor thanking him for his helpful insights on how vital it is to live all the laws of the Bible. But, the letter-writer continues, this uncompromising stance does raise some sticky questions. How and when should you stone adulterers and Sabbath-breakers? What is the best way to inform your first wife that you'll be adding to the family by taking a second and third? How many human slaves should you strive to own, and where can they be purchased nowadays?
|
|
The point of the email, of course, is to sardonically highlight just how far we have come from the culture of biblical times, and how impossible it is to speak of living the Bible literally when our own world is so different. And yet many of us try, out of devotion, to arrive at an unspoiled, untainted biblical meaning—discovering how ancient ways of pleasing God might be relevant for our times.
Such is the agenda of A. J. Jacobs' achingly funny memoir The Year of Living Biblically. Jacobs, the author of The Know-It All, begins by describing himself as a secular Jew. ("I'm Jewish in the same way the Olive Garden is an Italian restaurant. Which is to say: Not very.") In spite of his own detachment from religion, he is increasingly curious about the ways it influences 21st-century American life. Rather than standing on the sidelines or casting himself as an aloof pundit, he dives in head first and decides to spend a year living all the commandments of the Bible—that's right, all of them. A sampling:
He hires an earnest New York shatnez tester to ensure that his garments don't mix wool and linen (Deut. 22:11).
He can't utter the names of false gods (Exodus 23:13), which means that "I'll have lunch with you on Thursday" or "let's get the kids together for a play date on Wednesday" are flat out, since Thursday and Wednesday honor Thor and Woden, respectively.
He won't touch his wife during and just after her period—or any woman, for that matter (Lev. 15:19). He can't even sit on a chair a menstruating woman has occupied, which makes navigating the Manhattan subway a bit tricky.
He allows the sides of his hair to grow uncut (Lev. 19:27), and by the end of the year the fashion-challenged combination of his long earlocks and all-white garments (Eccl. 9:8) causes people to cross to the other side of the street rather than encounter him.
Although Jacobs sets out to include both the Old and New Testaments, it's the Old that takes center stage in this book, often to great comic effect. Admittedly, some of the life changes Jacobs undertakes are merely fun—he eats chocolate-covered crickets to fulfill Lev. 11:22 ("It'll be Fear Factor, Old Testament style"); rents movies from Clean Flicks to filter out sex and foul language (and, confusingly, much of the plots); and chows down on Ezekiel bread, one of the only recipes in the Bible. But during his year-long spiritual journey, he also raises some compelling moral and theological issues: Is it all right to employ modern mandrakes in the form of IVF, so that he and his wife can have another child? What is the proper way to treat his unpaid intern (unpaid internships being, as Jacobs rightly notes, the closest thing to biblical slavery that our culture now permits)? Does it violate the eighth commandment to "borrow" your downstairs neighbor's wireless signal? And, most poignantly, is it possible that freedom from choice is just as liberating as having unlimited freedom to choose?
Of course, some of the Bible's laws prove too strange even for Jacobs. The notion that one should break the neck of a cow near the scene of an unsolved murder (Deut. 21:4) is a bit too bizarre to be transforming the NYPD anytime soon. And, as Jacobs notes, some recommendations (e.g., "kill magicians") are downright illegal.
share this page
RSS Feed
