Living Literally?

I'm reading (listening to) the book The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible, by AJ Jacobs. The book begins with him talking about his not so usual beard, maybe like Moses's, walking about Manhattan. It's a very fun book ... and thought provoking. I got it from the library and may want to own it.

A secular Jew, Jacobs read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation in several translations, bypassing the one the bookstore said he could read anywhere and not be embarrassed - which looked like a girly magazine - which he started wishing he had bought when getting strange looks on the subway - yet has a thoughtful remark as to why even buy such junk anyway (not the Bible but the girly stuff).

Jacobs consulted Rabbis, Christians, and visited Amish/Mennonites ... atheists, popular Christian radio/TV people, and Red Letter Christians ... and even takes a trip to Israel. His wife and young son had to somewhat journey with him in this 381 day trial.

Jacobs' earlier book The Know-It-All followed a period of reading through the entire encyclopedia. We used to do Library/Pizza Hut summer reading program "Book It". Travis was such a voracious reader and FAST that I gave him challenges, and one was the E of our encyclopedia set.

It does beg the question - how do we read the Bible?