Jana Riess of Religion BookLine interviewed Jacobs for Publishers Weekly. One exchange from their Q & A:
RBL: How — or rather, why in the world — did you come up with the idea for this book?Read the entire Q & A.
Jacobs: I grew up in an incredibly secular home. I'm Jewish in the same way that the Olive Garden is Italian. I had no religion whatsoever. But I'd become increasingly interested in the role of religion in our world, so I decided to dive in head first, and try to actually live the Bible as literally as possible. I wanted to follow what the Bible says and get into the minds of the ancients who wrote it. I wanted to figure out what was relevant and good for me, and what was maybe not so relevant.
--Marshal Zeringue