It's our new Book Group reading selection and although I haven't finished it yet, I already like it immensely. For me to laugh out loud while I am reading can sometimes be an insurmountable feat but I've already had my fair share of laughs at certain passages in this non-fiction true account about 'living Biblically for a year'.
Here's what it's about:
'Raised in a secular family but increasingly interested in the relevance of faith in our modern world, A.J. Jacobs decides to dive in headfirst and attempt to obey the Bible as literally as possible for one full year. He vows to follow the Ten Commandments. To be fruitful and multiply. To love his neighbor. But also to obey the hundreds of less publicized rules:to avoid wearing clothes of mixed fibers; to play a ten-string harp; to stone adulterers.
The resulting spiritual journey is at once funny and profound, reverent and irreverent, personal and universal and will make you see history's most influential book with new eyes. Jacobs's quest transforms his life even more radically than the year spent reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica for 'The Know-It all.' His beard grows so unruly that he is regularly mistaken for a member of ZZ Top. He immerses himself in prayer, tends sheep in the Israeli desert, battles idolatry, and tells the absolute truth in all situations- much to his wife's chagrin.
Throughout the book, Jacobs also embeds himself in a cross-section of communities that take the Bible literally. He tours a Kentucky-based creationist museum and sings hymns with Pennsylvania Amish. He dances with Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn and does Scripture study with Jehovah's Witnesses. He discovers ancient biblical wisdom of startling relevance. And he wrestles with seemingly archaic rules that baffle the twenty-first-century brain.
Jacobs's extraordinary undertaking yields unexpected Epiphanies and challenges. A book that will charm readers both secular and religious, The Year of Living Biblically is part CliffNotes to the Bible, part memoir, and part look into worlds unimaginable. Thou shalt not be able to put it down.'
Okay, here's what I've been laughing at so far- I'll only share two selections in case you decide to read the book for yourself.
The first one is when he starts to address the commandment about not touching a woman for the week after the start of her period. Here's what he wrote:
'...Julie {his wife}, however, is not flattered at all. She finds the whole ritual offensive. I'm not loving it either. It's one thing to avoid handshakes during flu season. But to give up all physical contact with your wife for seven days a month? It's actually quite exhausting, painful, and lonely. You have to be constantly on guard- no sex, of course, but also no hand holding, no shoulder tapping, no hair tousling, no good-night kissing. When I give her the apartment keys, I drop them into her hand from a safe height of six inches.
"This is absurd," she tells me, as she unlocks the door. "It's like cooties from the seventh grade. It's theological cooties." I tell Julie I can't pick and choose what I follow in the Bible. That'd negate the whole point of my experiment. If I'm trying to get into the mind-set of the ancient Israelites, I can't ignore even the most inconvenient or obscure rule. I also point out that I didn't send her to a red tent. She's not amused.'
'...As for not lying on unclean beds, I'm off the hook. Julie and I don't share a bed. Apparently, when I sleep, I thrash around like a beached marlin, so Julie has opted for two twin beds pushed together, a disturbing echo of my parents and early sixties sitcoms. The no-sitting-on-impure-seats presents more of a challenge. I came home this afternoon and was about to plop down on my official seat, the gray pleather armchair in our living room.
"I wouldn't do that, " says Julie.
"Why?"
"It's unclean. I sat on it." She doesn't even look up from her TiVo'd episode of Lost.
OK. Fine. Point taken. She still doesn't appreciate these impurity laws. I move to another chair, a black plastic one.
"Sat in that one, too," says Julie. "And the ones in the kitchen. And the couch in the office."
In preparation for my homecoming, she sat in every chair in the apartment, which I found annoying but also impressive. It seemed in the biblical tradition of enterprising women- like Judith, who seduced the evil general Holofernes, only to behead him when he was drunk. I finally settle on Jasper's {his son's} six-inch-high wooden bench, which she had overlooked, where I tap out my emails on my PowerBook with my knees up to my chin.'
This next one is where he has to start stoning adulterers:
'...Instead I figured my loophole would be this: The Bible doesn't specify the size of the stones. So...pebbles. A few days ago, I gathered a handful of small white pebbles from Central Park, which I stuffed in my back pants pocket. Now all I needed were some victims. I decided to start with Sabbath breakers. That's easy enough to find in this workaholic city. I noticed that a potbellied guy at the Avis down our block has worked on both Saturday and Sunday. So no matter what, he's a Sabbath breaker.
Here's the thing, though: Even with pebbles, it is surprisingly hard to stone people. My plan had been to walk nonchalantly past the Sabbath violator and chuck the pebbles at the small of his back. But after a couple of failed passes, I realized it was a bad idea. A chucked pebble, no matter how small, does not go unnoticed.
My revised plan: I would pretend to be clumsy and drop the pebble on his shoe. So I did. And in this way I stoned. But it was probably the most polite stoning in history- I said, "I'm sorry," and then leaned down to pick up the pebble. And he leaned down at the same time, and we almost butted heads, and then he apologized, then I apologized again.
Highly unsatisfying.
Today, I get another chance. I am resting in a small public park on the Upper West Side, the kind where you see retirees eating tuna sandwiches on benches.
"Hey, you're dressed queer."
I look over. The speaker is an elderly man, mid-seventies, I'd guess. He is tall and thin and wearing one of those caps cabbies wore in movies from the forties.
"You're dressed queer," he snarls. "Why you dressed so queer?"
I have on my usual tassels, and, for good measure, have worn some sandals and am carrying a knotty maple walking stick I'd bought on the Internet for twenty-five dollars.
"I'm trying to live by the rules of the Bible. The Ten Commandments, stoning adulterers..."
"You're stoning adulterers?"
"Yeah, I'm stoning adulterers."
"I'm an adulterer."
"You're currently an adulterer?"
"Yeah. Tonight, tomorrow, yesterday, two weeks from now. You gonna stone me?"
"If I could, yes, that would be great."
"I'll punch you in the face. I'll send you to the cemetery."
He is serious. This isn't a cutesy grumpy old man. This is an angry old man. This is a man with seven decades of hostility behind him. I fish out my pebbles from my back pocket.
"I wouldn't stone you with big stones," I say. "Just these little guys."
I open my palm to show him the pebbles. He lunges at me, grabbing one out of my hand, then flings it at my face. It whizzes by my cheek. I am stunned for a second. I hadn't expected this grizzled old man to make the first move, But now there is nothing stopping me from retaliating. An eye for an eye. I take one of the remaining pebbles and whip it at his chest. It bounces off.
"I'll punch you right in the kisser," he says.
"Well, you really shouldn't commit adultery," I say.
We stare at each other. My pulse has doubled.
Yes, he is a septuagenarian. Yes, he had just threatened me using corny Honeymooners dialogue. But you could tell: This man has a strong dark side. Our glaring contest lasts ten seconds, then he walks away, brushing by me as he leaves.'
Maybe you didn't find it as funny as I did- but I thought it was pretty humorous- his attempts to live the letter of the law just make me laugh! I'll have to let you know if I like it all the way through to the end.
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