What happens when you follow the Bible literally for a whole year?
A.J. Jacobs looks back at what he learned about religion, himself, and modern American culture during “The Year of Living Biblically.”
This month, we’re investigating the Book of Books, the Bible. Please enjoy this exclusive interview with A.J. Jacobs, author of The Year of Living Biblically, and be on the lookout for our upcoming newsletter.
By Tim Brinkhof
In 2006, journalist AJ Jacobs made a decision that might have cost him his marriage and, quite possibly, sanity: He was going to follow the words of the Bible as literally as possible for an entire year. He would stick to those widely agreed-upon moral commandments that need little explanation, like loving your neighbor and giving to the poor. But he would also obey the hundreds of other, more obscure rules that — while they may have made sense in ancient Israel — strike many modern observers as bizarre, pointless, or outdated.
For example, Leviticus 19:27 says, “You shall not round off the hair on your temples or mar the edges of your beard,” so the normally clean-shaven Jacobs threw out his razor. Then there’s Leviticus 15:19: “When a woman has her regular flow of blood, anyone who touches her will be unclean,” meaning he could not hug his wife during her time of the month. Meanwhile, a translation of Deuteronomy 14:25 — “You shall turn it into money and bind up the money in your hand” — compelled him to walk around his native Manhattan with a set of dollar bills strapped to his palm. Picking up rituals practiced by members of only the most devout Christian and Jewish communities, he avoided clothing made from mixed fibers, added tassels to his shirts and sweaters, heralded each new month by blowing a ram’s horn, and learned to play a ten-string harp.
Jacobs’s bestselling book that resulted from his self-experiment, The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible, not only brought him closer to his Abrahamic heritage by way of the Old Testament. (He previously described himself as “Jewish in the same way Olive Garden is an Italian restaurant.”) It also helped him to better understand other religious groups that pride themselves on their adherence to Biblical literalism.
Because many of these groups have since become loyal supporters of Christian nationalist agendas, The Year of Living Biblically is enjoying an appropriate yet also somewhat concerning second life — one Jacobs himself is all too aware of.
“The book has two themes,” he tells Big Think over Zoom. “A critique of religious fundamentalism and an investigation into how religion can help you become a better person. I had hoped the second part would be the part that remained relevant, but unfortunately, it’s the other way around. In fact, things may be worse now than they were back then.”
Immersion journalism
Living Biblically wasn’t the first book that required Jacobs to make massive lifestyle changes, nor was it his last. For The Know-It-All: One Man’s Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World (2002), he read all 32 volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica. “My Outsourced Life,” a 2005 Esquire article, saw him hire a team of virtual assistants to reply to his work emails, argue with his wife, and read bedtime stories to his son, Jasper. Living Biblically was followed by other, equally daunting endeavors, such as Drop Dead Healthy: One Man’s Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection (2012) and, most recently, The Puzzler: One Man’s Quest to Solve the Most Baffling Puzzles Ever (2022).
Jacobs refers to this style of writing as “immersion journalism,” and there are several reasons why he likes it so much. For one, it suits his personal interests. “Like many writers,” he says, “I find sitting in front of a laptop alone incredibly depressing and painful.” The research phase — going out into the real world, meeting people, gathering experiences and anecdotes — is where the real fun is. In terms of job security, immersion journalism also seems remarkably immune to the threats posed by ChatGPT.
“AI can’t go outside, do things, make a fool of itself. It can’t put on a beard and robes and walk around New York,” Jacobs points out.
Most importantly, immersion journalism forces the writer to learn through doing rather than observing, an approach that can lead to radically different outcomes. This is evident in Living Biblically. Unable to wrap his rational mind around some of the Bible’s seemingly illogical teachings, Jacobs only began to understand their value after being forced to practice them.
For example, he initially viewed the commandment to “give thanks in all circumstances” (Thessalonians 5:18) as an arbitrary obligation, but the act made him feel so good it became the conceit for his 2018 book, Thanks a Thousand: A Gratitude Journey (2018): “I personally thanked 1,000 people involved in getting me my morning cup of coffee. The barista, the truck driver, the farmer in South America, even the people who built the roads. That project was directly inspired by the Bible because I was basically saying secular versions of prayers — thanking people instead of a deity.”
Living biblically
Although Jacobs does not believe in God, he walked away from his biblical year with several new values and habits. He continues to give thanks and pledge part of his income to charity as stated in Leviticus 27:30 (“A tithe of everything from the land, whether grain from the soil or fruit from the trees, belongs to the Lord”). He still observes the Sabbath, a day reserved for rest and worship in the Ten Commandments. Granted, his secular Sabbaths are no longer occupied with Bible study, but they remain a fruitful antidote to his workaholism.
“This is what the Sabbath should feel like,” he writes in Living Biblically, after he has accidentally locked himself in his bathroom with nothing to do and no way of escaping. “A pause. Not just a minor pause, but a major pause. Not just lowering the volume, but a muting. As the famous rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel put it, the Sabbath is a sanctuary in time.”
“I’ve become more of a fan of rituals,” he tells Big Think. “I have a strict morning routine that consists of about 20 steps, including listing three concrete things I’m grateful for. I also try to put myself in other people’s shoes more often — nothing groundbreaking but it certainly stretches the compassion muscle.” While rituals help with his OCD, they’re not exactly compulsory, at least not anymore. “Some people stick with them out of fear,” he notes, “believing they’ll go to hell if they don’t. I don’t have that motivation. For me, it’s about being a better and happier person.”
Going into his biblical year, Jacobs also hoped the Bible would teach him how to be a better parent to Jasper and his twin sons, whose mid-writing conception fulfilled yet another literally interpreted commandment, “Be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:28).
“One thing that stuck with me is from Ecclesiastes,” Jacobs says. “It says, and I’m paraphrasing, that luck happens to us all, and we’re often at the whim of things outside our control. I feel lucky: My kids have turned out to be good people, and I don’t take full credit for it. Maybe just 3%.”
Even some of the Bible’s more barbaric-sounding rules turned out to have surprisingly sane origins. For instance, the infamous “eye for an eye” principle (Exodus 21:23-25) is often criticized for advocating an unending cycle of violence. However, religious scholars informed Jacobs that it may have been preached to contain possible violence. Do to others what they have done to you — no less, and certainly no more.
The limits of literalism
Jacobs’s quest to become the “ultimate fundamentalist” led him to seek out various religious groups that interpreted the Bible literally: Amish farmers, Pentecostal megachurches, Young Earth Creationists, and even the followers of his estranged uncle Gil, a spiritual leader living in Jerusalem. Asked if his interactions with these long-term literalists foreshadowed the more intense role Christianity would play in U.S. politics after the book was published, he takes a moment and then shakes his head. “It’s hard to predict the future,” he replies, “so I don’t try.”
“I hoped fundamentalism would decline,” he continues, “not just biblical literalism, but all forms of rigid religious ideology.” At the same time, he understands its growing appeal. “It offers clear, black-and-white answers,” which can be a source of comfort in a chaotic world. “And this not only goes for religious fundamentalism, by the way, but also economic fundamentalists, who believe you should never interfere with the free market, or any other type. The real divide here isn’t between religious and non-religious, but between rigid, absolute thinking and being flexible and open to different perspectives.”
Hence, one of the book’s focuses is on revealing the contradictions and limitations that are baked into biblical literalism. Wading through biblical commentaries in preparation for the project, Jacobs quickly discovered that many passages defy a straightforward interpretation. Another conundrum soon followed this discovery: Passages can be in direct conflict. Some advocate hedonism, others asceticism. One urges believers to procreate like rabbits, another to stay celibate. One to turn the other cheek, another to draw the sword.
In light of these incongruities, it should come as no surprise that many people who claim to follow the Bible to the letter are, in fact, highly selective when it comes to which rules they obey and which they ignore. This was true in 2006, and it’s still true today.
“Just last week, a reporter called me about a proposal in the West Virginia legislature to declare the Bible the ultimate moral and legal guide,” Jacobs says. “There are wonderful parts of the Bible, but if you follow them all literally, then you’d have to legalize polygamy, ban mixed fabrics, rename the days of the week (Thursday is named after Thor, a pagan god), and impose a 99% estate tax because, as Jesus said, it’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter heaven.
“Same goes for Oklahoma, where last year a school district proposed teaching the Bible in all subjects, including math and science. I don’t mind it being taught in history or literature, as long as other cultures are included, but inserting it into math is just absurd. I joked in a Facebook post that they could calculate how long it would take Solomon to lay with all 700 wives and 300 concubines if he took one day off per week.”
Ultimately, Living Biblically demonstrates that serious, critical engagement with the Bible can actually move people away from fundamentalism, not toward it. “One of the most important skills I learned was to sit with uncertainty and make decisions based on probability instead of absolutes,” Jacobs concludes. “I get why fundamentalism is attractive, but I try to fight those tendencies and just embrace the discomfort and uncertainty.”
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What a waste, if by the end of it all, Jacob still does not believe in God ~ the One thing that could have truly transformed him!