Write Them on the Doorframes
For awhile now I’ve been looking into taking a course in Judaism (or a class to learn how to speak Hebrew) to further understand my Christian roots.
Then I decided I would create my own “course” and self study.
Then I came across this book: The Year of Living Biblically. It’s being released Oct 9 and is written by a man who tried to follow all the rules in the Bible for one year.
Brilliant. What a great idea. Talk about self study. Still, after reading a few author interviews I was confused.
“How could he follow all the commands?” I asked my husband. “The greatest one is ‘Love* the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.’ How can he do that if he’s agnostic?”
“Yeah, I’m not sure,” Ron said.
“Even before Jesus added ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’ God gave this command. I mean, it's the whole point. All other commands fall underneath it,” I said.
I guess I’ll have to read the book. Looks like a fascinating read.
~
*Love how the first word of the greatest commandment is LOVE.
posted by Jenny at 10:36 PM
10 Comments:
* Ditto.
7:58 AM
Have you read Girl Meets God and Mudhouse Sabbath by Lauren Winner (I think that's her last name)? She converted from Reformed Judiasm to Orthodox Judiasm and then to Christianity (all between college and graduate school). She has some interesting thoughts on how the two religions connect.
10:46 AM
I'll have to watch for the book at my library. Looks interesting.
12:27 PM
I saw the author on The Today Show this morning. It sounds like an interesting premise, but I wonder if he might have been motivated to do his experiment out of a desire to create an original (and saleable) concept for a book. Just saying, people will do some pretty outlandish stuff to get published...
7:20 PM
Haven't read those E, but I'll look into them.
Susan, I just read an article the other day about how it's the "thing to do" to dedicate or deprive yourself of something for one year and then write a book about it.
8:58 PM
I think it would be great if he did it. And, I bet it would transform his beliefs. I've seen that happen -- especially to people in the medical field who are so focused on science and hard facts. Once they are face to face with people, the miracles, and the experience of birth and death, they become filled with God. Well, they always were all along, but didn't know it.
9:42 PM
Hmmm....what could I deprive myself of?
I can't think of a thing.
9:45 PM
I'd love to hear what you think after reading this book. I probably won't have a chance to read have heard about it for a few weeks and read a few articles about it. We've been studying a book about how to study the Bible and one of the issues it brings up is cultural context. It seems some of the message behind the words of the text might be a bit lost when you try to transport it into 21st century life.
And to kill two posts with one comment, so to speak . . . the niche of this blog? For people who think you are talented, gifted, interesting and a great source of inspiration in life, writing and creating. I'm not so hard core on the yoga and WASA eating, but I'd follow you over to that blog if you let this one go.
10:37 PM
Sounds good! I might have to check that book out as well. Have you ever read "Blue like jazz", by Donald Miller?
10:56 AM
As far as I'm concerned, Love is the first and last word in the Bible. God is love. Love is God. That's all I'm sayin!
8:21 PM
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