Book Review on "The Year of Living Biblically" One Man's Humble Request to follow the bible as Literally as Possible by A.J. Jacobs

The first book I read this year in 2009 was very intriguing and interesting if you are interested in any aspect of Judeo-Christian religious value & lifestlye. It is called "The Year of Living Biblically" One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible. It is a New York Times Bestseller by A.J. Jacobs. This book was just shy of 400 pages but so captivating you wil be able to fly through it. A.J. is a man who is searching for some faith as he is an editor for Esquire magazine in NYC. His goal to write this book is to experience life as attempting to live out all or as many as possible of the laws and rules of the Bible literally. As he started out in his journey he took on an incredible journey of faith as an assignment but as we all know the Bible changes people from the inside out. He has a board of spiritual advisors to help him on his journey for guidance. Much of the book is focused on several laws, rules, and practices of the Old Testament of Jewish culture. It is intriguing and interesting to read and to imagine more of what it was like to live in biblical times. Jacob grew a beard & wore a white robe. He consulted with Rabbi's,Pastors, and different religious groups such as the Red Letter Christians among others. He even went to visit a Creatinonist museum in Kentucky.He even ate some locust and honey~! He researched things on line as well as visited the Holy Land of Jerusalem. Some things that he was able to incorporate in his life was prayer, gratitude,tithing and resting on the Sabbath. This book has a lot of inside thoughts of humor as well. He examines positive & negative views on wine on pg 231-232 which is pretty interesting as well.

A small excerpt from the book itself:Some conservative Christians were baffled by A.J's undertaking of writing this book. They said that he could not truly understand the bible without accepting the divinty of Christ. They said that many of these laws-like the ones about animal sacrifice-were nullified by Jesus's death.
A.J started to have doubts. He started to get anxious about his approach and his ignorance and lack of preparation and all the mistakes he might make. He absorbed more and more on the fact that the Bible isn't just another book. Its the book of books, as one of my commentaries calls it. He says he loves his encyclopedia, but the encyclopedia hasn't spawned thousands of communities based on its words. It hasn't shaped the actions, values, deaths, love lives, warfare, and fashion sense of millions of people over three millennnia. No one has been executed from translating the encyclopedia into another language, as was William Tyndale when he published the first widely distributed English-language edition of the Bible. No president has been sworn in with the encyclopedia. It't intimidating to say the least.
Fortunately, I got a couple of pep talks from two of my favorite advisers. The first was Reverend Elton Richards, my friend David's Father, who just retired as minister of his Lutheran congregation in Des Moines, Iowa. He calls himself a "pastor out to pasture." I told him about my doubters.
"You just have to tell them that you have a hunger and thirst. And you may not sit at the same banquet table as them, but you have a hunger and a thirst. So they shouldn't judge you.
A midrash-a story or legend that is not in the Bible proper, but which deals with biblical events. This midrash is about the parting of the Red Sea.
"We all think of the scene in The Ten Commandments movie with Charlton Heston, where Moses lifted up his rod, and the waters rolled back. But this midrash says that's not how it happened. Moses lifted up his rod, and the sea did not part. The Egyptians were closing in, and the sea wasn't moving. So a Hebrew named Nachson just walked into the water. He waded up to his ankles, then his knees, then his waist, then his shoulders. And right when the water was about to get up to his nostrils, the sea parted. The point is, sometimes miracles occur only when you jump in."
So I did. And here is what happened, writes A.J...
This author & his book has inspired me because I see God drawing someone closer to Himself.. as far as I know at the end of his book A.J. decided to attend a Jewish Temple & send his son to Hebrew school as a start to teach his children some aspects of religion and the bible. A.J. sitll may not have had the aha moment call from the Lord to fully accept Christ and a relationship with Him, but I trust God that He will continue to work in A.J's life & family to continually draw Him closer and continue to grow a hunger & thirst in his life and all of our lives so that we may draw closer to Him and His ways.
So after reading this book, A.J Jacobs & family is now one more addition to my prayer list. I thank God for Him & to be able to read about someone's journey exploring the faith community and to know some of their inner thoughts & perspective of how foreign some aspects of things of faith can seem to an outsider looking in the bible or church life for the first time.

Some websites he recommended were as follows:www.creationmuseum.org www.ReligiousTolerance.orgwww.Eprayer.comwww.moveon.orgwww.flukerfarms.comwww.breadbeckers.com/recipes/ezekiel_bread.htmwww.prochoiceactionnetowrk-canada.org/articles/bible.htmlwww.priestsforlife.org/brochures/thebible.htmlwww.elroy.net/ehr/abortion.htmlwww.jimfeeney.org/pro-life.htmlwww.lulu.com/content/186110www.meson.org/religion/torahcompare.phpwww.zootorah.comwww.polygamy.com/articles/templates/?a=www.come-and-hear.com/editor/america_4.htmlwww.straightdope.com/columns/06110.htmlwww.psychclassics.yorku.ca/Festinger/index.htm

Some of the Spiritual Advisory Boards A.J. Jacobs visited or observed...
The 700 Club,Pat Robertson, The Red Letter Christians, Tony Campolo, Jim Wallis,Thomas Road Baptist Church,Lynchburg, VA,Jerry Falwell & the Samaritans, the Amish,& many others.. from Jewish background.

A Long List of books in his notes he examines for perspective on his journey...

The Battle for God, The Great Transformation, A History of God, Thy Kingdom Come, The Oxford Bible Commentary,Roadside Religion, The Complete Idiots Guide to the Bible, Radical Honesty, The Kregel Pictorial Guide to the Temple The Missing Gospels:Unearthing the truth behind alternative Christianities, Reading the Bible again for the first time, Daily Life in Biblical Times, The Myth of a Christian Nation, How to read the bible, Religon Explained, Holman's Illustrated Bible Dictionary, Letters to a Young Doubter, What Would Jesus Eat,Our Endangered Values,Sources of Strength, The Language of God,Serving the Word: Literalism in America from the Pulpit to the Bench, Fleeing Fundamentalism: A Minister's Wife Examines Faith, Don't Know Much About the Bible, The God Delusion, Living Judaism, Everyday Life in Bible Times, The JPS Guide to Jewish Traditions, Misquoting Jesus, The Bible unearthed, The Five Books of Moses, The Anchor Bible Dictionary, Commentary on the Torah, Who wrote the Bible?, The Reluctant Parting: How the New Testament's Jewish Writers Created a Christian Book, The Bible for Dummies, My Struggle with Faith, Kingdom Coming, Wrestling with God & Men, Letter and Spirit: From written Text to Living Word in the Liturgy, The World of the Bible, The End of Faith,Letter to a Chrisitan Nation, Living by the Book, The Varieties of Religious Experience, Permission to Receive, The Book of Lost Books, Why the Ten Commandments Matter, Fear and Trembling, The Jewish book of why, Jewish Matters, The Book of Jewish Holidays, The Bible as it was, Left Behind, Mere Christianity-C.S. Lewis, We Got the Bible, What the Bible says about Parenting, Manners and Customs in the BibleCatholicism: New Study Edition, Lives of the Saints: From Mary and Francis of Assisi to John XXIII and Mother TheresaAn Incredible Journey, Evidence for Christianity, Christian Living, Confessions of Faith, The Oxford Companion to the BibleGod: A Biography, The Questions of God, Handling Serpents, God's Secretaries, A Book of Prayer, Adam, Eve and the Serpent, When good Men are Tempted, American Theocracy, Teach Them Diligently, The Institutes of Biblical Law, The Maker's Diet, Why I am not a Christian, Fundamentalism: the search for meaning, American Judaism, Bring back the Sabbath, Encyclopedia Judaica, The World's Religions, Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism, The Sins of Scripture, As a Driven Leaf, The Essential Talmud, The Courtier and the Heretic, The Case for Faith, The New Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, The Book of Jewish Values: A day-by-day guide to Ethical Living, History of Christian Thought, Faith, Reason, and the Existence of God, Letters from Earth, The New Unger's Bible Handbook, United States Catholic Cathecism for Adults, God's Politics, The Purpose Driven Life, A Handbook of Bible Law, What Jesus Meant, Noah's Ark: A Feasiblity Study, Can Man Live Without God

His Bible Bibliograpy:
The Five books of Moses, Good News Bible, The New Jerusalem BibleTanakh: The Holy Scriptures, Amplified Bible, The Stone Tanach, The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version, The New Oxford Bible Annotated Bible, The Holy Bible: Revised Standard Version, The Holy Bible: New King James Version, The Living Bible, The New American Bible, God's Word Bible, Holy Bible: New International Version