Monday, September 24, 2007

 

BIBLE: Look Ma! No Hand!

A. J. Jacobs' recent book writing trick: Live a whole year following all the rules of the Bible.

Unless your religion is similar to a Weird Al Yankovic video, or your Bible's missing a whole section called the "New Testament," reading this story about his adventure is frustrating to say the least.

Jacobs spent the year carrying around a stapled list of the more than 700 rules and prohibitions identified in the Good Book, and also consulted with religious leaders and spent time with the Amish, Hassidic Jews and Jehovah’s Witnesses.

See what I mean? It makes sense, of course, when you're reminded that his purpose was to, let's be real, poke fun at the Bible.

Also, during the experiment I wore a lot of white clothes, because Ecclesiastes says let your garments always be white, and I loved it, so I look like Tom Wolfe now.

The most frustrating part of the article stems, for me, from the fact that he never mentions the New Testament or Jesus. Therefore, it leads me to believe that he didn't actually follow the whole Bible ... just the ol' rules and regs part.

Two kinds of rules were hard. Avoiding sins we commit every day like lying, gossiping and coveting was hard, and then there were the rules that were hard to do in modern life, like stoning adulterers.

See what I mean?

Well, but, come to think of it, Jacobs might now be missing an eye or a hand had he followed, literally, some of the sayings of Christ.

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