I've been following A.J. Jacob's yearlong journey through the familiar and the obscure (often absurd) teachings of the Bible. A secular Jew living in a secular community, Jacob's spent a year trying to obey the rules of the Bible "as literally as possible", uncovering the absurdity of fundamentalism but hoping to find some spiritual meaning along the way. There are outdated and funny rules, and so he ends up doing some pretty funny stuff. But this is not a satire or an attack on religion. He genuinely wants to understand the Bible better, and in doing so, understand the religions that are based on its teachings. Living by over 700 biblical laws is an extreme and direct way to pursue these goals. Of course, what else would one expect from the guy whose last book was about reading the encyclopedia from A to Z?
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