If you haven't yet read A.J. Jacobs' book,The Year of Living Biblically, I commend it to you. Its a short, fun, and compelling narrative of a self-described secular, agnostic Jew ("I'm Jewish in the same way Olive Garden is Italian," says Jacobs), who attempts to live the Bible literally for a year. His insights are oftentimes profound, and some of his conclusions warrant consideration by those of us who call ourselves "people of the book."
Recently, I also discovered the phenomenal web-site TED: Ideas Worth Spreading. The video web-site offers for free some of the best minds, sharing from their areas of expertise. To my delight, they have a short (18 minutes or so) video of Jacobs sharing from his experience of attempting to live biblically. Not only was he hilarious, but I think some of what he has to say connects with what we'll be thinking about when it comes to reading Scripture missionally. He was formed by his experience of attempting to live the Bible literally. He changed. The text read his secular, agnostic context and brought to light certain aspects of it which have since been transformed. In a way, I think Jacobs' experience bears resemblance to what we pray for our students, and yet don't always see.
Watch the video, and share your thoughts. What strikes you about his experience? What compels you? What would you push back on?
Erik Leafblad
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Hey Erik,
Barry Schwartz' talk was released today on Wisdom... freakin'amazing.
View here http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_our_loss_of_wisdom.html
Posted by: Mike | February 17, 2009 at 08:48 PM
Mike,
I also watched that one yesterday. I was thinking of putting that one up later this week with some thoughts. Thanks for the HT though.
Posted by: Erik Leafblad | February 18, 2009 at 07:07 AM
Looks more and more like somethin' big is goin down.
Posted by: Air Jordan | November 16, 2010 at 07:30 PM
I won't give up*_*
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Posted by: supra skytop | December 01, 2010 at 10:07 PM
I was thinking of putting that one up later this week with some thoughts.
Posted by: ClubPenguin | March 08, 2011 at 04:36 AM
Nice, and thanks for sharing this info with us.Good Luck!
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