"The good and not so good of the Good Book"

Chutney · Jun 6, 2009

An author who tried to follow the Bible literally for a year talks about the experience

It comes as news to A. J. Jacobs – the A is for Arnold, the J for, uh, Stephen (don't ask) – that the Royal Ontario Museum, deeming 21st-century life too fraught for the original Ten Commandments, is expecting him to provide three new ones when he speaks there Tuesday night.

As it transpires, it won't be a problem.

The author of the New York Times bestseller The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible has the bona fides to pronounce on religious commands. At times, by way of research, he has walked the streets of Manhattan with the Ten Commandments tied to his forehead as required by Exodus 13:9.

Concerned and intrigued by the rise in religious fundamentalism, both Jewish and Christian, Jacobs wanted to see what the draw was by observing all 700 rules, orders, injunctions and prohibitions contained in the Old and New Testaments.

That meant everything from letting his beard grow and never "cutting the corners of it" (not that he could figure out where the corners were) to eschewing clothing made of wool mixed with linen,to, yes, stoning (pebble-ing to be precise) a self-admitted adulterer who threw the pebbles at him first.

Modern-day laws being what they are, he did not kill a magician but did drop a pebble on the foot of a street astrologer who was not, to understate considerably, soothed by his explanation.

Jacobs was an agnostic when he started his project, officially Jewish but raised in a secular family: "I'm Jewish," he explains, "in the same way the Olive Garden is an Italian restaurant. Which is to say: not very."

But the 12-month experiment found him buying a 10-string harp with which to praise God. Learning to blast a ram's horn at the start of each month. Becoming a shepherd in the Negev desert, a soothing occupation he says he easily mastered. Even, as the Bible recommends, taking on a slave, of sorts, an intern named Kevin who helped with research.

Some Biblical mandates Jacobs pulled off spectacularly well. Others not so. He failed to break a cow's neck at the site of an unsolved murder (Deut. 21:4). But following God's injunction to Adam to "be fruitful and multiply," he became the father of twin boys before the year was out.

So, commandments he can supply, when needed, though mindful now of the sin of pride, he prefers to call them suggestions.

One off the top: Thou Shalt Not Stereotype.

Jacobs did when he began the book: "I went in with preconceived notions about evangelical Christians, figuring they were all alike." But they range from liberal to conservative and vary even within those categories: "They're not a monolith."

He cites a group called the Red-letter Christians, who have a pamphlet titled "What Jesus said about homosexuality." Open it up and it's blank. Jesus said nothing.

"What they take literally is helping the poor, the oppressed and the outcast. I found that very inspiring."

With his unkempt shrub of a beard – passers-by called out "Yo, Gandalf," among other things, while his long-suffering wife, Julie, flatly refused to kiss him during the last two months of the project – Jacobs wound up looking like the prototype of an Arab terrorist. A resemblance noticed by, among others, Israel's El Al Airlines: "They grilled me for an hour."

The 41-year-old Esquire magazine editor-at-large ("it just means I write at home") was guided throughout by an eclectic clutch of advisers, including ultra-Orthodox Hasidic Jews, a joke-telling Amish B & B owner ("You haven't seen a deadpan delivery until you've seen the Amish"), and the leader of the still-extant Samaritans, as in the Parable of the Good one, though he was put off by their ongoing sacrificing of animals ("I'm not into animal sacrifice"). Oh, and snake-handling Pentecostals.

Which is not to forget the creationists, who take Biblical literalism to its zenith.

Squaring the Genesis story of a six-day creation of the Earth with the actual physical evidence requires some mighty mental contortions. But not for the first time or the last, Jacobs found himself surprised.

"Creationists are no different in intelligence from evolutionists," he says. "But they're so stuck on this idea that they distort the data. Their fear is that if one part of the Bible is untrue, then all of it is untrue."

Throughout the year, Jacobs gradually became more aware of his personal sins, his tendency to lie, covet, swear and gossip (expressly condemned in Ephesians 4:29). Granted, he points out, he's a journalist, and such failings seem to come with the territory.

"Gossiping was a big one. I couldn't believe how much I did. It makes me happier when I don't." Then again, "there's a difference between malicious gossip and useful information. If you invested with Bernie Madoff, I want to know."

With relief, he found a gossip hotline in Brooklyn "where they'll talk you off the gossip ledge. Want the number?"

Becoming conscious of his actions changed them, he says, a sort of Biblical cognitive therapy. He's reduced what used to be his behavioural default mode by 30 per cent, more on good days.

Which brings Jacobs to a second new Commandment: Thou Shalt be Grateful.

Saying prayers of thankfulness every day of the year made him realize all the hundreds of things that go right each day, instead of focusing, as before, on the three or four that go wrong.

"So now, though I fail all the time, I try to be thankful."

He also tries to live according to the "wise, poetic and modern-feeling" central message of Ecclesiastes, his favourite Bible book. In a nutshell, it is Carpe diem, he says – "enjoy life."

Ah, but Ecclesiastes (12:13) also contains the dictate to "fear God and keep his commandments for this is the whole duty of man." So isn't that culling passages, a practice frowned on by fundamentalists? Yes, and Jacobs is all for it. "Cafeteria religion is a derogatory term, but I've had some great meals in cafeterias. The key is choosing the right dishes."

His point is that the Bible is barbaric and violent in some places, compassionate and loving in others. Thus, a third new Commandment is an emphatic Thou Shalt Pick and Choose. Perhaps with a note attached: Try to select loving thy neighbour as thyself over smiting down your enemy.

Jacobs's parents had worried their son would "go native" during his plunge into the Biblical deep end, and wind up chanting in a monastery or stationed permanently at Jerusalem's Wailing Wall. But when Jacobs emerged, he was still an agnostic, albeit a "reverent agnostic," with new respect for ritual, a Sabbath day of rest, and the importance of rules. He was flummoxed at the end of his year by the freedom he once again faced.

"There's something good about rules. They provide an architecture to life that's comforting."

Jacobs has begun another all-encompassing quest: to become the healthiest person on Earth. He's given up processed food and says he's hungry all the time. He had to eschew pork, shrimp, rabbit, eagles and osprey during his time of living Biblically, while getting the green light on crickets.

In the scheme of things, this new deprivation is as nothing. It will be done.
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Source: Toronto Star

Thought this was pretty interesting read.

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"The good and not so good of the Good Book"

Chutney MON-STRAWRRR!!1!

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