The Year of Living Biblically

The book I'm reading for our first report is The Year of Living Biblically, by A.J. Jacobs. I wasn't too sure on which book to pick because I'm not a fan of reading non-fiction books, but I'm very glad I picked this book. I talked to the librarian and she convinced me to endure in reading this book, and I've been interested since the first page. The main idea of this book is an ordinary man, coming from a Jewish family but doesn't participate in any religious rituals, decides to live a year following the rules of the Bible. He's a middle class American with a wife and a young son, his wife is skeptical about his project but he continues to pursue it anyways.

It was a very tiresome job to go through the Bible page by page to list and understand each rule from the holy book, but Jacobs was anxious to begin as soon as he could. Some rules that modern day Christians don't even abide to, "keeping from wearing clothing with two mixed fibers" he obeyed. He went as far as hiring somebody to come to his house and go through each article of clothing he owned to check what he was able to wear without committing a sin. Also, he bought a special chair for his wife while she was on her menstrual cycle, because they aren't allowed to sleep or sit together for that week.

I read an interesting chapter where Jacobs and his wife traveled to an Amish country, and stayed in the hotel for awhile. They described the Amish as peaceful, humble people. And ultimately, his plan and their way of life were the same. It amazes me how those people can live that way, and I'm planning on someday going to observe their ways. Jacobs wrote that after about two months, he found himself starting to believe in his prayers and feel the holy ghost, and he felt like a different man. The man living by the Bible was called "Jacob" and he was different than A.J. Jacobs. It's an intriguing theory that if you live a certain way for a certain period of time, you'll start to really live like that.

So far this book is great, I'm looking forward to these next couple SSR sessions so I can get deeper into my book. I'm only about 80 pages into The Year of Living Biblically, but I'm sure I'll finish it within a week. Highly recommended.