Book Club - The Year of Living Biblically

A.J. Jacobs is insane. Trying to live a year following the all the rules in the Bible literally, is the definition of ab absurdum. His wife Julie deserves all of our respect. She not only endured this year but did it while carrying twins. Having said that, I thoroughly enjoyed his experience from the safe distance of my couch.

I was intrigued by this book, The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possibly, as soon as I heard about it. It seemed like an interesting way to learn more about religion and to hear another opinion about God’s word without having to endure the slog through another dry read. This book is witty, insightful, and a joy to read. There were some areas that I wish he developed more, but he does a good job covering a huge range of Biblical topics from the wearing of tassels to snake handling.

I would not recommend this book to people who believe that the Bible IS the word of God as they will call it heretical and dismiss it outright, but for those who believe that it contains the word of God, this is a worthwhile read. This book will make you consider areas of the Bible that you had not before. It may give you insight as to why the Bible calls us to do things that we don’t fully understand.

As for A.J., a self-proclaimed agnostic, it is interesting to read his own personal transformation: from purposeful prayer to inspired prayer; from A.J. to Jacob and back to A.J.?; from Jewish by genealogy to Jewish by life choice. One of my favorite scenes was his time locked in his bathroom – did the handle fall off or perhaps a greater hand in his lesson? A.J.’s voice is friendly and interesting and though most of us probably would have given him wide berth in his white un-mixed fiber costume, you will want to continue to hear from him. In fact, I plan to try to get his other book The Know It All out of the library today.

,

(Oh wait - I have to read Suite Francaise for the Book Club - see how this becomes a problem?)

Bible Study - Jesus birth through baptism

As I have mentioned, in Bible study we are reading “A Harmony of the Gospels” by Ralph Heim, which is a parallel way of looking at the gospels. Each gospel is lined up so that you can see what they have in common and what they don’t. For this week’s assignment we read the first section (basically, the birth of Jesus through his baptism and temptation by the devil).

The most interesting part is the volume of words. The book of John is mute. There is no writing in this section at all. Mark is second, keeping his words to a minimum. Mathew and Luke however have a great deal to say.

It is also interesting to note the phrasings that are identical between some of the books: John the Baptist “making the path straight”; John saying “After me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry”, and they all seem to concur that the heavens were opened and a dove came down (although there seems to be some semantic disagreement about who / what the dove is) along with a voice that was heard saying, “This is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased”. They also all seem to agree that Jesus was tempted in the wilderness. Luke and Matthew give much more detail to this, while Mark’s explanation is rather brief.

I also found differences as interesting as similarities. For example, neither Mark nor John speaks of Jesus’ lineage in this section; however, Matthew and Luke do. Interestingly too, differences arise. One, the lineages don’t match until both reach King David. Two, it is interesting that Matthew only extends the line back to Abraham while Luke finds importance in extending the line back to Adam and therefore God. Of course I find it rather interesting that this paternal genealogy is so pertinent when just a few verses later they make a point that Joseph is not the father of Jesus, but that Jesus is God’s son and he has no earthly father.

I look forward to a lively conversation on this section and can barely wait to read on and see what else I notice due to the different format. How I wish I knew and understood more. I will pray for God to continue to direct my learning and understanding of this miraculous book, the Bible.

If you read the Gospels in parallel form, I would love to hear about some of your insights.

Bible Study Begins

Today was the first day of the new year of Bible Study. In the past we have worked through Karen Armstrong’s History of God & Our Religions. This year we are going to focus more on Christianity and are going to be working through A Harmony of the Gospels by Ralph D. Heim. It is a parallel gospel so that we can compare the similarities and differences in each book. As our minister noted, too often we blend similar stories into one and forget the differences. I look forward to really delving into the gospels.

In today’s conversation, I was intrigued by the idea of scripture. As we discussed the writing of the gospels we contemplated the audience to which the texts were written. At that time there was no New Testament, nor a consideration of one. While each may have known of the other’s writings, they were not originally intended to be together. When they were talking of scriptures, they were speaking of their religious scripture, i.e. the Old Testament. This may seem like a silly point but it really struck me as profound. It is hard to imagine that they originally saw themselves as a sect of Judaism and not as the beginning of a new religion called Christianity!