One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as PossibleI had some qualms about A.J. Jacobs' previous book "The Know-It-All," in which he read the entire encyclopedia and wrote about the experience. The whole thing seemed a little staged, as if he was only doing it for the book deal. I suppose I could have a similar complaint about this book, in which he follows the tenets of the bible for a year.
However, this book feels like more than just a stunt. It's possibly because the Bible is a far more important book than the encyclopedia. Even if you don't believe anything in the Bible -- and that seems to be where Jacobs is coming from at the beginning -- the Bible at least has had a major impact on the world. There's nothing wrong with the encyclopedia, of course, but it's still just list of random facts with no central theme.
The best parts of "The Know-It-All" were when Jacobs would go on an encyclopedia-related adventure that took him away from the book. Here, there are many more options for interesting adventures. It's the difference between writing about reading a book and writing about living a book. That alone makes this a much more exciting project.
Jacobs goes on several adventures. He visits a snake-handler in Tennessee. He attends Jerry Falwell's church in Virginia. He even travels to Israel to reconnect with his Judaism, as well as a crazy ex-Uncle who was once a cult leader. And, of course, he walks through Manhattan with a long beard and a white robe for much of the year. Along the way, his wife also gives birth to twin boys.
As Jacobs is Jewish and as the Old Testament is by far the longer Testament, the book mostly revolves around Judaism, although in the last third he does study Christianity in detail.
Religious readers may be disappointed that there is no great life change here. Jacobs began the project as an agnostic, and that's the way he ends up, though he does seem to feel he's a better person from the experience. He spends an entire year praying and doing good works for the people of New York and beyond. At times, he's worried that he's only doing all this for the sake of a book, but one of his spiritual advisers calmed him with this thought:
"C.S. Lewis said the distinction between pretending you are better than you are and beginning to be better in reality is finer than moral sleuthhounds conceive." In short, pretending to be better than you are is better than nothing.
Lewis and Jacobs might just be onto something there.
