The Year of Living Biblically

Is a great book I read recently by AJ Jacobs. It is a chronicle of his year of trying to follow all the rules of the Bible indiscriminately -- starting off as a secular humanist agnostic, a non-practicing Jew. Since I also try to "live biblically", it was very interesting to read someone else's journey through the same ideal, but from a very different starting point. First of all, he discovered that picking and choosing is not optional -- although he set out to follow "all the rules", from the very beginning this was impossible. In my opinion, that makes the rule by which we pick and choose which rules to follow very important! The best things AJ got out of his year, to him, were living a life of gratitude rather than envy, keeping the Sabbath (he loved this!), wearing white and growing a beard (though he gave these up at the end of the year). He now sees God more as an abiding life-principle (rather than non-existent), not as a personal being, and still has trouble believing in Jesus -- yet his life was clearly changed by the experiment! If you've ever struggled with which rules to follow and which no longer apply, this book is a great read!