Subtitle: "One man's humble quest to follow the Bible as literally as possible" - I haven't read it yet. Was wondering if anyone here has read it?

Synopsis
From the bestselling author of The Know-It-All comes a fascinating and timely exploration of religion and the Bible.
Raised in a secular family but increasingly interested in the relevance of faith in our modern world, A.J. Jacobs decides to dive in headfirst and attempt to obey the Bible as literally as possible for one full year. He vows 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 play a ten-string harp; to stone adulterers.

The resulting spiritual journey is at once funny and profound, reverent and irreverent, personal and universal and will make you see history's most influential book with new eyes.
Jacobs's quest transforms his life even more radically than the year spent reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica for The Know-It-All. His beard grows so unruly that he is regularly mistaken for a member of ZZ Top. He immerses himself in prayer, tends sheep in the Israeli desert, battles idolatry, and tells the absolute truth in all situations - much to his wife's chagrin.

Throughout the book, Jacobs also embeds himself in a cross-section of communities that take the Bible literally. He tours a Kentucky-based creationist museum and sings hymns with Pennsylvania Amish. He dances with Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn and does Scripture study with Jehovah's Witnesses. He discovers ancient biblical wisdom of startling relevance. And he wrestles with seemingly archaic rules that baffle the twenty-first-century brain.

Jacobs's extraordinary undertaking yields unexpected epiphanies andchallenges. A book that will charm readers both secular and religious, The Year of Living Biblically is part Cliff Notes to the Bible, part memoir, and part look into worlds unimaginable. Thou shalt not be able to put it down.

Publishers Weekly

What would it require for a person to live allthe commandments of the Bible for an entire year? That is the question that animates this hilarious, quixotic, thought-provoking memoir from Jacobs (The Know-It-All). He didn't just keep the Bible's better-known moral laws (being honest, tithing to charity and trying to curb his lust), but also the obscure and unfathomable ones: not mixing wool with linen in his clothing; calling the days of the week by their ordinal numbers to avoid voicing the names of pagan gods; trying his hand at a 10-string harp; growing a ZZ Top beard; eating crickets; and paying the babysitter in cash at the end of each work day. (He considered some rules, such as killing magicians, too legally questionable to uphold.) In his attempts at living the Bible to the letter, Jacobs hits the road in highly entertaining fashion to meet other literalists, including Samaritans in Israel, snake handlers in Appalachia, Amish in Lancaster County, Pa., and biblical creationists in Kentucky. Throughout his journey, Jacobs comes across as a generous and thoughtful (and, yes, slightly neurotic) participant observer, lacing his story with absurdly funny cultural commentary as well as nuanced insights into the impossible task of biblical literalism. (Oct.)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information .

Honestly, does not sound like something I would have an interest in.

Thanks!

You are welcome.

I try not to judge a book by its cover - or dust jacket... but the synopsis leads me to believe it is either a pedantic effort to show how impractical and unable one would be to follow to the letter of the law (as understood and defined by whom??) OR an Evangelical tome meant for folks who take a sola scriptura stance. Neither sits well or appeals to me. If you get your hands on a copy and decide to give it a read, let us know.

As it stands right now, I have about 1.2K books (give or take) that are on my must-read list, and I am doing a rather lousy job of whittling it down. Used to have a 45-90 minute daily commute where I could knock a good deal out, not so much any longer...

I did.
I read perhaps 30 pages and then began to read further by skipping around.
I have read enough to decide that I am not at all able to recommend this book.
It seems 'theatrical'.
CS

PS
OK - I didn't like what I read.
However, I just learned by looking at an interview online that it is going to be a film!
CS

I don't know if I would read the book.

It seems to be a mockery of the Bible.

It reminds me of the joke in the Simpsons where Ned Flanders is complaining to God on how he follows all the rules, even those rules that contradict the other rules. (Without ever mentioning any of them as proof, of course.)

I am sorry I brought it up here, because it isn't really relevant to discussions on this site ... that is what I think after having read some of it. No doubt you'll hear of it when it becomes a film.

There's no need to be sorry, we should discourse on books even if we don't agree with what's in them.

Will it be a comedy, in film?

OK,I just thought maybe it wasn't relevant enough to our forum. Thanks ...
CS