"The Year of Living Biblically" Years Later

Jul 24, 2024

My book The Year of Living Biblically was published seventeen years ago. If my book were a person, it would be approaching adulthood. It’d be old enough to get a helicopter license in all US states and to legally drink alcohol in several nations (including Malta, Grenada, and the Netherlands).

I decided my new Substack was a good opportunity to look back and see how the book and I have aged. What lessons have stayed with me? What would I change? What have been some of the most interesting reactions?

I re-read The Year of Living Biblically a few days ago. There are parts that make me wince (see below). There are parts that are hilariously outdated (I broke the coveting commandment by lusting after my neighbor’s Palm Treo 700 PDA? What the hell is a Treo?). There are parts that reminded me how lucky I am to still be married to Julie (my obsession with impure chairs, for instance)

Overall, the book’s themes still resonate with me. I continue wrestling with these issues and don’t have tidy solutions. What I do know is that I’m super-grateful for the reactions over the years, which have ranged from the flattering to the not-so-flattering to the bizarre. For instance:

The actor Daniel Radcliffe read the book and told me that Julie is “pretty fucking awesome.”
Another former child actor, Kirk Cameron, spent an hour trying to convert me to Christianity on his evangelical radio show.
I’ve received many letters from high schoolers who were assigned a paper on The Year of Living Biblically (hooray!) and who asked if I’d write their paper for them since I knew the material (sad trombone).
My voluminous beard spawned an Internet meme about software programmers (see below)

My robe and sandals were featured in an exhibit at the Jewish Museum in Vienna.
CBS turned the book into a short-lived sitcom called “Living Biblically,” which was…well…it was made by some very talented people who were hamstrung by CBS’s blinkered vision. So, the end result did not make my heart rejoice. But Julie, our sons, and I were allowed to visit the set, meet the actors (including Jay Ferguson from “Mad Men,” who played a version of me), and pillage the craft services, which was awesome.
I’ve given hundreds of presentations about the book to synagogues, churches, atheist gatherings, and at least one convention for carpet sales professionals.
I’ve received thousands of emails and letters. The vast majority have been very nice, even those that said they were praying for my soul because I didn’t become religious enough. A handful of the emails were unsettling, such as those requesting tufts of my shaved-off beard, which I did send because why not?

WERE PEOPLE READING THE SAME BOOK?

One fascinating aspect of the letters was that people seemed to read the book in very different ways.

In the book, I tried to show the dangers of religion as well as its potential benefits. As a result, I got hundreds of emails from secular readers who thanked me for showing how bizarre and outdated the Bible is (including Neil deGrasse Tyson, who said he refers my book to anyone who believes in a literal interpretation of the Bible).

On the other hand, I got hundreds of emails from religious readers who thanked me for showing how relevant and spiritually nourishing the Bible can be. Some even thanked me for renewing their faith.

People interpreted the book the way they wanted. The confirmation bias in action!

Maybe that shouldn’t be a surprise. In writing the book, I had two separate — and mildly conflicting — goals:

To show the problems with literal interpretation of the Bible and religious fundamentalism.
To see what aspects of religion — its worldview and rituals — that I, as a secular person, could learn from.

I’M STILL JUST AS CONCERNED ABOUT RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM

As for goal Number One, you might be surprised to hear my book didn’t end religious extremism. I know! So close.

Even more disturbing: religious extremism doesn’t seem to be ebbing. I see it all over. For starters, there’s still zealot-fueled homophobia that makes me gnash my teeth.

There’s the Oklahoma public school superintendent who says that the Bible must be taught in schools — and not just in history and literature, but that the Bible should be “woven across subjects including math and science.” On Facebook, I recently gave some suggestions to the Oklahoma school system on how to incorporate the Bible into math problems. For instance:

Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines (1 Kings 11:3). If he lay with one wife or concubine every night but took off one day per week for rest, how many days would it take him to lay with all of his wives and concubines?

Readers suggested a host of other math problems.

AT THE SAME TIME, LESSONS FROM THE BIBLE PROJECT CONTINUE TO HAVE A HUGE POSITIVE INFLUENCE ON MY LIFE

And yet, there is also vast wisdom in the Bible and in some religious traditions.

For instance, gratitude. In the book, I talk about how the Bible instructs you to be grateful for everything in life. So, I took that literally. I was grateful when I pressed the elevator button, and the elevator came. I’d get in the elevator and be grateful it didn’t plummet to the basement and break my collarbone. And on and on. It was a weird way to live, but also wonderful because it made me realize there are thousands of things that go right every day. My default mode is to focus on the few that go wrong.

In fact, a few years later, these ideas on gratitude gave birth to another book, Thanks a Thousand. In that book, I traveled around the world and thanked a thousand people who had anything to do with my morning cup of coffee (the barista, the farmers in South America, the coffee logo designer, the truck driver, the woman who does pest control at the coffee bean storage silo, and so on).

But it’s not just gratitude. I learned a lot in my biblical year about forgiveness, loving your neighbor, keeping certain times sacred — all lessons that have stayed with me.

THE THREE B’S OF RELIGION

When I think about religion nowadays, I often return to a framework I learned from one of my biblical advisers.

Religion, he said, is made up of three B’s:

Belief (as in belief in a God)
Belonging (as in being part of a community)
Behavior (as in both ethical behavior and rituals)

So, where do I stand now?

I still don’t have that first B, the Belief in God. I remain agnostic. I’m not convinced by any of the philosophical arguments that God exists, and I haven’t undergone a mystical, scales-falling-from-the-eyes revelation that has made me a believer.

And yet I have found great value in the other two B’s: Belonging and Behavior.

To break those down:

BELONGING

We are wired for community. It’s crucial to our mental health and our morality. The Bible authors knew this. The biblical worldview was much less about the individual. It was about the community. You were supposed to think less about your individual rights and more about your responsibilities to others.

I’m a huge fan of individual rights (free speech, among them), but I believe we’ve gone too far in stressing our own rights, leading us to overlook our responsibilities to others.

Belonging to a community is a good way to remind yourself to pay attention to others. And it doesn’t have to be a religious community. I’m a part of several communities that mean a lot to me, from the Puzzling community to the parents of my kids’ school friends.

After the book, Julie and I ended up joining our neighborhood reform Jewish synagogue, Rodeph Sholom. We wanted to give our sons a taste of their inherited tradition so they could decide for themselves what to practice or not.

I should add that community can be a double-edged sword. As Harvard psychology professor Joshua Greene writes in his book Moral Tribes, the wonderful thing about humans is that we are able to form groups to accomplish amazing feats (whether those groups are nations, religious affiliations, or neighborhoods). The tragedy of humans is that these groups so often view other groups as the enemy, as rivals in an us-versus-them zero-sum game.

So, my ideal communities are ones that do not have high walls but instead, ones that interact, trade ideas, and work with other communities.

BEHAVIOR

The final B that makes up religion is Behavior. This can take two forms: ethical behavior and rituals.

Some — not all — of the Bible’s behavioral rules line up with my own ethics. During the book, I tried to give myself ethical makeover. I tried to eliminate lying, gossiping, and coveting from my life. I failed, of course. It’s impossible. But I did cut down these little sins by maybe 40 percent. And despite some backsliding, I do less gossiping than pre-book.

How to do a moral makeover? One helpful strategy I continue to employ is “acting as if.” I pretend I’m a moral person. I act as if I’m a moral person, and eventually my mind catches up with my actions. I love the quote (apparently from a 19th-century minister): “It’s easier to act your way into a new way of thinking than it is to think your way into a new way of acting.”

I’ve also come to appreciate rituals. Before the book, I was skeptical of these seemingly irrational practices. But during the book, I tried some biblically-mandated rituals — and I tried to do them the ancient way. For Passover, I walked around New York with dough strapped to my back, trying to bake it in the sun like my ancestors fleeing Egypt.

Seventeen years later, I’ve stopped strapping raw dough to my back. But I do adore my cousin Bobsey’s seder, where we wave finger puppets of the biblical characters and tell tales of what seders were like when my father was a child.

Julie and I encouraged our sons to have bar mitzvahs, rituals that I found simultaneously delightful, moving, and absurd (e.g., the dance “motivators”). In my sons’ speeches, they talked about wrestling with the words of the Bible and not accepting them unthinkingly, which made me proud.

But here’s an important point: Rituals don’t have to be religious. I loved the book by Sasha Sagan (Carl’s daughter) called For Small Creatures Such as We, which explored meaningful but secular rituals. I was also intrigued by Religion for Atheists by Alain de Botton. And I cherish my own secular family rituals, including Family Movie Night (and the 45 minutes of negotiations over what movie to watch).

One other note on rituals: Not all are created equal. If they are harmful, such as Kapparot featured in my book (the one in which chickens are slaughtered), I’m all for abandoning them or updating them.

To sum up, one way I now think about religion is this: It’s a tool. And like any tool, it can be used to make the world better or worse. It can give us a sense of community, can inspire us to treat each other with dignity, and can give birth to gorgeous music. But it can also be used to justify hatred, bigotry, and archaic laws.

To me, the more significant split is between fundamentalists (whether religious, Marxist, free market, or otherwise) and those who are open to changing their minds based on evidence and discussion. Speaking of which…

THINGS I WOULD CHANGE IN THE BOOK

In each of my books I can find plenty of cringe-worthy stuff. Which I think is a good thing. I don’t want my worldview to be frozen. I want to evolve. As for this book, just a sampling of stuff I’d reconsider:

I’m uncomfortable with the fact that I devoted about 75 percent of the book to the Hebrew Scriptures (the Old Testament) and 25 percent to the New Testament. I did that for a couple of reasons. First, I felt more comfortable writing about the Hebrew Scriptures since I’m Jewish (even if I’m Jewish in the same way the Olive Garden is Italian, as I wrote in the book). Also, the Hebrew Scriptures contain the bulk of the rules. I know why I did it, but it feels lopsided. Maybe I should have written two different books, one on the Hebrew Scriptures and one on the New Testament.

I’m torn about the sections on creationism. I visited the Creationist Museum in Kentucky, a bizarro version of the Natural History Museum near my New York apartment. The Creationist Museum has exhibits on how God created the world 5,000 years ago. Some secular readers said I was too soft on creationism. Maybe that’s true. Creationism is fueling scientific illiteracy, which is a plague on our society. On the other hand, if I had been too condescending or dismissive of creationists, then maybe that would have just backfired and alienated any undecided readers I hoped to reach. I don’t know how I’d change it exactly, but I’m not satisfied with it as is. It’s a tricky balance between understanding and condemning.

I also wish I’d written—and done more—about helping the disadvantaged. I volunteered at a homeless shelter and attended a rally about Darfur, but those were a bit perfunctory. I should have dived deeper into religion’s ability to inspire compassion.

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

I’m sometimes asked for updates on the folks featured in the book. Here’s a sampling:

My Aunt Kate

At the time of the book, my mother’s sister Kate observed Orthodox Judaism. A few years after the book came out, Kate left Orthodox Judaism—but she still has strong beliefs. She has devoted herself with equal zeal to causes such as fighting against 5G Wireless. I don’t agree with her views on technology or vaccines, but I still love her, of course.

My intern Kevin

I’m still friends with my former intern and biblical bread-baker, Kevin Roose. While writing this book, I took Kevin with me when I visited Jerry Falwell’s church in Virginia. Kevin found it fascinating. On the way back to New York, Kevin said he had a book idea: What if he transferred from Brown, where he was a sophomore, to Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University for a semester? In other words, go from one of the most liberal universities to one of the most conservative. He said maybe he could write a book with the theme, “my semester abroad in the Bible belt.” I introduced Kevin to my agent, he wrote a great proposal, got a contract, transferred to Liberty – and published a fascinating book called The Unlikely Disciple, which is nuanced and thoughtful. Not only that, Kevin has gone on to superstardom in the writing world. He is a tech columnist for The New York Times and host of the podcast “Hard Fork.” He also wrote a famous column for the New York Times about how AI fell in love with him and tried to break up his marriage.

My neighbor Nancy

I wrote about Nancy, the former sixties flower child who lived in the apartment across the hall. She was friends with Jimi Hendrix and designed one of his album covers. She died alone in her apartment during my biblical year. I was able to find the unpublished memoir she left behind. After my book came out, one of her long-lost relatives contacted me and asked for Nancy’s manuscript. After I confirmed the guy was legit, I sent it to him.

My spiritual adviser Roger

During the year, I consulted a board of spiritual advisers, including rabbis, ministers, and scholars. One of my advisers was Roger Bennett, who, at the time, worked with Jewish nonprofits. Since then, he’s pivoted from sukkahs to soccer. He is now one of the world’s most successful soccer commentators and co-hosts a huge podcast called “Men in Blazers.”

Julie and my sons

I plan to feature my family regularly in this Substack (when I get permission, of course), so I won’t rattle on for too long. But briefly:

Julie continues to be, as many have called her, a saint. She most recently had to put up with my year of living constitutionally, which included a brief and ill-fated attempt to follow sexist nineteenth-century coverture laws.

My kids, who are teenagers now, have mixed feelings about what I do for a living. Sometimes they find it fun and fascinating, other times they find my behavior is embarrassing. Like way-beyond-average-dad-level embarrassing.

But I can say that Jasper loves the tale of how my efforts to biblically discipline him with a Nerf rod backfired. He’s proud of his 2-year-old self.

I’m so impressed with who my sons have become and are becoming. I can say that without being too boastful because I believe that we vastly overestimate how much control parents have over their kids’ fates. My choices as a parent are responsible for a small portion — maybe 4 percent, maybe 10 percent. But so much depends on other factors: luck, DNA, friends, extended family, teachers, our dog, more luck, my kids’ own self-discipline and drive.

I’m grateful to those influences, along with the big force — whether that’s divine or simply the inexorable laws of physics that control the universe’s 10^80 atoms that allowed them to exist.

ONE FINAL NOTE:
My newsletter last week was Part One of a two-parter. It was the first five of Ten Commandments for Surviving the Age of Misinformation. I’m working on Part Two now. I’ll post those in the next few weeks.