The Eyes Have It -- More Fooling with Scripture in the Handmaid's Tale!

Symbol of "The Eyes of God"

For the past few weeks, Leigh and I have been talking about the uses and abuses of scripture in The Handmaid's Tale, the dystopian sci-fi novel by Margaret Atwood and now a hit series on Hulu.

Since the dystopian future of The Handmaid's Tale is run by a totalitarian theocracy that uses Jewish and Christian scriptures to justify its fascist, misogynistic rule, there's plenty of material for us to work with!

This week, we're talking about eyes: the secret police called the Eyes of God; the not-exactly-biblical greeting/motto "Under His Eye," and plucking out an eye that offends. We're also talking about Christian-ese, Lady Wisdom, hyperbolic language, and accountability in community. Check it out!



Here's a few things we mentioned this week:

• You can read the passages we discuss from Proverbs 15 and Matthew 18 
• We mentioned two of our favorite seminary professors: Dr. Denise Dombkowski Hopkins, who will haunt a future episode about Jezebel (and whose books you can check out), and Dr. Sharon Ringe, whose book, Wisdom's Friends: Community and Christology in the Fourth Gospel, talks about Wisdom and Logos. For more on Lady Wisdom, there's a ton of resources out there, but I'd recommend She Who Is by Elizabeth Johnson
• We also mention our colleague Brahmachari -- we'll try to have him on a future episode, but you can hear an interview with him here

If you're interested in coming to hear us at the Wild Goose Festival, here's the deets. We'll be doing a live podcast in the GooseCast tent, Friday, July 14, at 9am. I'll also be doing a number of other talks at the Goose -- keep an eye on my "Come See Me" page for the full schedule. You can get a 25% discount on your tickets to the Goose by using the discount code GOOSECAST17 -- so get your tickets and come hang out with us!

Leigh and I are headed out on our honeymoon (hooray!), so you won't hear from us for a few weeks, but feel free to send an email with any questions, comments, or suggestions and we'll get back to you when we return.

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