Feels good to finally knock this off my TBR after 13 years, and it was a pretty good read, but I think I wanted more from it. This mindset is puzzling, because I was actually expecting less than what I got here. I was expecting this to be more of a satirical, humorous, critical exploration of the Bible. And it was not that! At all! Jacobs is extremely, beyond-call sincere in his exploration. He’s funny, but the humor is secondary. His quest comes first. (He also has OCD, which I can relate to, so his already existing tendency to ritualize things probably helped him stick to this for a whole year, something his long-suffering wife Julie most likely wishes he hadn’t done.)
Something else that surprised me is that I was thinking for some reason that this would be a Christian-focused exploration of the Bible, but he actually only spends 3-4 months on the New Testament, and Jewish people follow the Old Testament as well, so he actually spends quite a lot of time exploring the Jewish interpretations of those books of the Bible. This makes a lot of sense in hindsight! He is also Jewish in ancestry, if not in practice, when the whole things starts, so it’s kind of fun to seem him explore his heritage along with taking on this absurd project. It was also interesting to see someone who has never been religious in his life try experience spirituality for the first time.
All in all, I liked this, but I’m not sure if I will be reading the author’s other books.
[3.5 stars, might round up later]
