In my OT and NT intro courses, I do a couple of lectures on basic hermeneutics, especially the matter of why Christians have a hard time figuring out why we obey some commands, but not others. As an opener for this subject, I usually make mention of A.J. Jacobs’ book, A Year of Living Biblically, which chronicles Jacobs attempt to obey all the hundreds of commands in the Bible. As he well notes, it is impossible. The more important question is – is it necessary? Is that what the Bible is all about? At the end of it all, was Jacobs a better Christian (or Jew or whatever)? My answer is, no, that is not what the Bible is for, and that does not make you a better Christian per se.
Anyway, it is really helpful (especially for those who have not read the book, including most of my students) to hear from Jacobs about his experience. So, I found a short (17 minute) lecture that summarizes his experiment and experience. There is much in this entertaining lecture to discuss and debate! I am definitely going to show it (or maybe 12 minutes or so of it) in class.
Note – A.J. Jacobs had and has a lot of the same questions and misconceptions about the Bible that my students do, so his perspective and experience is especially interesting and relevant. I actually rarely show video clips by Bible scholars.
[...] of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible (HT Nijay Gupta) Filed Under: Bible Tagged With: A. J. Jacobs, Bible, Biblical, literal, literalism Leave a [...]