The Year of Living Biblically by AJ Jacobs

Once you've mastered all the knowledge in the world (or at least all the knowledge in the encyclopedia), where do you go from there? Well, if you're AJ Jacobs, Esquire writer and all-around infopreneur, you go for the biggest book of all: the Bible. Jacobs decided to follow up his encyclopedic memoir The Know-It-All with an even more intense test of the academic spirit and his wife's patience: he would live for a year, following every possible rule in the Bible.

Now, that's a lot of rules. And many of them involve things like stoning your fellow citizens--which is, surprisingly enough, not so cool in modern-day New York. But Jacobs makes a pretty good go of it in his latest book, The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible. As an agnostic, his main connection to Judaism is through purely social stuff and slightly wacky relatives. Curious, he wonders what a person misses by avoiding religion, and whether he's depriving his toddler son of a moral and emotional imperative. Hence the quest. But a writerly review of the Bible would be too easy--so Jacobs has to plunge himself, fully committed, into following every rule, every commandment, every suggestion in every book of The Book. (Well, minus the stoning ones.)

A lot of his journey is personal. He talks about growing out his beard (which Leviticus says can't be groomed) for an entire year. He tries to pray, wondering if his newfound piety will make him feel genuinely spiritual. He struggles with the Biblicality of his wife's fertility treatments (is it unnatural, or is it being fruitful and multiplying?). He risks his wife's constant exasperation with the rule that prohibits him from touching a woman while she's "impure" every month, and from sitting on any surface that might have been touched by an impure woman (good luck with that one on public transportation). He faces family drama by connecting up with his zany former uncle Gil, a wannabe cult leader in Israel. He alienates friends with limited conversations (sarcasm is a no-no, brutal honesty is a must) and many, many dietary restrictions. And it's all done in a funny, frank manner that makes you groan and sympathize with everyone who had to put up with him for a year.

The parts that aren't so intimate, which make it a real book and not just a long humor essay in Esquire, are Jacobs's interactions with real spiritual advisors and actively religious people to provide background. So many tidbits were interesting....Like the Orthodox Jewish man who freelances as a clothing-fiber consultant to make sure that one's clothes don't mix wool and linen. Or the aforementioned Uncle Gil, whose Jerusalem dinner parties are a combination of a 1970s Woody Allen movie and Waco.

One of my favorite informational bits was about the Red Heifer, the animal that must be sacrificed, cremated, mixed with water, and sprinkled on one's head for true purification. But the red heifer must be completely unblemished (not a single non-red hair), and have never plowed a field. No problem--except no such cow exists. Apparently there's an international breeding initiative supported by super-fundamentalist Christians and super-Orthodox Jews, because without the cow and its total purification, no one can build the Third Temple. No temple, no Jewish Messiah and battler of the Antichrist. So basically, everyone wants the cow. It's a fascinating project, and one I'd never heard of before. But while it's easy to categorize it as those loopy zealots doing their thing, there are political implications as well. "It's not just that it's zany...it's that it's potentially dangerous. If the red heifer arrives, it'll be seen by some as divine permission to build a Third Temple. Where would it go? On the Temple Mount, which is currently under the administration of Muslims--home to their sacred Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque. Then it really might be the end of the world." Yikes. Shades of Jesus Camp, which is, to date, the scariest movie I've ever seen.

All around, it's a very entertaining and informative book. Jacobs is really engaging, and isn't shy about making himself look like an idiot to get to some deeper knowledge. I am, however, glad I'm not his (obviously very patient) wife. Remember, kids: never marry a creative nonfictionist. And the next time you see a Moses-y looking guy on public transportation or walking down the street, and you think, "Uh oh, religious nut," be kind. He could have a book deal.

Some of my favorite passages:

"Is half the world suffering from a massive delusion? Or is my blindness to spirituality a huge defect in my personality? What if I'm missing out on part of being human, like a guy who goes through life without ever hearing Beethoven or falling in love?"

"Speaking of dinosaurs, if they were really on the ark, as creationists claim, how did Noah squeeze them all in?

'He put them in when they were younger and smaller. The equivalent of teenagers.'"

"[Gil] talks about his days as a cult leader only occasionally. At one point he grouses about the burden of having forty servants. 'You know what I said every day? "God, get them out of here!" What a pain in the tuchus to have to tell forty people what to do.'

When he finds out that one of the girls speaks American Sign Language, he boasts of the sign language he invented as a cult leader--and how it swept New York in the 1970s.

'I found that a lot of my signs were the same as deaf sign language. Like the word understand.'

Gil puts two of his fingers on his palm.

'You just did the sign for toast,' says the girl. Gil shrugs.

'Well, it wasn't the most important thing that I invented in my life.'"