Though their particulars very, every religion, the acknowledgement of and adherence to the divine, is based on a set of sacred rules that must be honored by its followers. For these rules are not only mechanisms by which a faith's clergy maintain power and influence, they are the means by which the followers of a given faith distinguish themselves from nonbelievers, from the less righteous. Take these rituals away and there's no means for any of the faithful to measure their adherence, to determine their level of godliness. They must be followed, obeyed, or the divine will withdraw his love.
But of course, some of these rules reveal themselves, in the fullness of time, to be rather silly. After all, most of our world's faiths laid down their laws in the dark and chaotic times prior to the rise of science and the rule of law which both invest the individual with secular logic and secular rights, neither of which play well with the amorphous whims of the insubstantial divine. So which laws should be obeyed and which ignored? Which did the divine intend to be unbreakable and which did he intend to be flexible? In this modern world, so shaped by scientific thought, these are the quandaries believers are left with. And fortunately, they have Mr. Jacobs, a fabulous eccentric, to turn to.
A liberal-minded New Yorker and writer for Esquire, Mr. Jacobs, Jewish by family history, sets out in The Year of Living Biblically to do precisely that, live for 365 days in full compliance with the laws of the Bible. Though this task soon proves to be impossible -- the good book is far too packed with arcane and conflicting laws to be obeyed 100 percent of the time --, the author, undaunted, endeavors to adhere to the many, many commandments as best he can. He stops shaving his face, blows a trumpet on the first day of every month, refuses to touch his unclean wife for seven days after her period, gives away ten percent of his income, and endows himself with the generosity of spirit and disposition his faith asks of him.
But though he is mostly successful in his efforts to follow the most obvious laws, there are many he doesn't know how to interpret. Was an eye for an eye literal or figurative? Was adultery actually adultery, or something else? Was thou shalt not kill actually intended as a constriction on killing? These and many other questions of context and metaphor, of interpretation and translation complicate Mr. Jacobs' journey, but never do they sway him from achieving his ultimate goal, understanding the book, its lessons and the impact it has on shaping the hearts and minds of its countless believers.
The Year of Living Biblically can be read in two ways, as a thoughtful and fruitful exploration of the bible and the lessons it has to offer, or as a devastating expose of the dogmas of the past which, to this day, are followed despite having been revealed as baseless. Though Mr. Jacobs himself clearly meant his investigation to take the path of the former -- he is ceaselessly earnest in his desire to explore the Bible with an honest heart and an open mind --, the doctrinal nonsense he unearths certainly encourages the reader into the arms of the latter view. So many of these rules have been banished, like embarrassing uncles at the family reunion, to the proverbial shed not because God has stopped caring about them but because they are either too arcane to be interpreted properly, or their requirements are too humiliating for their adherents to fulfil.
Not only must rules always be obeyed, all rules must always be obeyed. Otherwise, they should not be rules. There's plenty of evidence from secular society to convince us of the chaos of what results when rules are only enforced by some people some of the time. If we don't enforce all the rules all the time, only fools will follow them. In society, this begets lawlessness. In religion, this kills faith. For the whole enterprise hinges on the willingness of the divine to enforce his commandments. That Mr. Jacobs is able to run this experiment at all, and that it is so impossible to execute tells us all we need to know about the impotence of the divine.
This is a wonderful read, as entertaining for believers and secularists alike. For Mr. Jacobs has imbued his project with the twin spirits of humor and self-discovery which have rarely steered a writer wrong. Witty, fascinating, engaging and disturbing all... And certainly provides plenty of biblical trivia for dinner parties. (4/5 Stars)
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