In conjuction with The Remnant Trust at IPFW
A.J. Jacobs
“My Year of Living Biblically”
A.J. Jacobs sees his life as a series of experiments in which he immerses himself in a project or lifestyle, for better or worse, then writes about what he learned.
In one of these experiments, Jacobs read all 32 volumes of the Encyclopædia Britannica, then wrote about it with self-deprecating wit and a disarming frankness in his humorous book, The Know-It-All: One Man’s Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World (2004).
Jacobs’ most recent book, The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible (2007), chronicles his experiment to live for one year according to all the moral codes expressed in the Bible. Raised in a secular family but interested in the relevance of faith in our modern world, he attempts to obey the Bible as literally as possible for one full year: 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 made of mixed fibers, to stone adulterers.
The resulting spiritual journey is at once funny and profound, reverent and irreverent, personal and universal, and it will make you see history’s most influential book with new eyes. Jacobs embeds himself in a cross-section of communities that take the Bible literally: he tours a creationist museum and sings hymns with the Amish; he dances with Hasidic Jews and does Scripture study with Jehovah’s Witnesses. He wrestles with seemingly archaic rules that baffle the 21st-century brain, and he discovers ancient wisdom of startling relevance.
A.J. Jacobs is a New York Times bestselling author, Esquire editor, and human guinea pig. He has written for The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, and New York Magazine, among others. Jacobs has appeared on Oprah, The Today Show, Good Morning America, and is a periodic commentator on NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday.