Last updated 11:17, Friday, 21 March 2008

THIS week I have been reading about American author AJ Jacobs, who has written a book about his aim to live strictly by the rules of the Bible for a year.

Not only did he follow famous Biblical rules, such as the 10 Commandments, he also tried to abide by little-known ones, such as not shaving, wearing only white garments (as laid down in the Book of Ecclesiastes, apparently) and not wearing clothes of mixed fibres.

Now, it was news to me that the Bible forbade such things, but apparently it is particularly sinful to wear wool and linen together.

Man-made fibres, of course, had not been invented in Biblical times, so there would have been no chance of the Old Testament football team running around in polyester strips with their names on the back.

This was especially lucky for Nebuchadnezzar, who would have had a bit of a struggle to fit it all on.

It is, of course, an admirable aim to live one’s life by the rules of the Bible.

I suppose it’s easy enough to follow some of the rules, such as not murdering anyone, being respectful to your parents or trying to love your neighbour.

But there is a lot of stuff in the Bible which, quite frankly, you really shouldn’t do.

Smiting for instance. Smiting is generally a Bad Thing, although a lot of it goes on among folk coming out of the pubs and clubs at the weekend (as does begetting, but we’d better not talk about that).

So if you try to live by the Bible there are lots of good things you can do - but don’t even think about sacrificing a goat, or even stoning an adulterer. There would be questions asked.