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.

And last but certainly not least, if you enjoyed this podcast and like this blog, please consider becoming a Patron!

Fooling with the Handmaid's Tale -- Martha, Mary, and Meekness (Fooling with Scripture podcast)

In this week's episode of The Fooling with Scripture podcast, Leigh and David talk more about the uses and abuses of scripture in The Handmaid's Tale, the dystopian sci-fi novel by Margaret Atwood that is now a hit series on Hulu.

Up for discussion this week -- Martha and Mary, the definition of meekness, and the myth of the male breadwinner.

And as a bonus feature, this week's episode comes with real live contributions from Penny Lane!

This dog has thoughts.

All this, and much more, on this week's episode of Fooling with Scripture:
Some reading suggestions / things we mention this week:

• Here's Luke's account of Martha and Mary, which you can read alongside John's very different account to see the comparison
• Here's the Sermon on the Mount from the gospel of Matthew
• Here's the article that Leigh mentions about the way the Bible itself is controlled in Gilead
• And for a brief overview of what we're talking about when we go off on a brief family systems tangent, here's a previous blog post on that topic, though it's less about families per-se and more about macro-systems

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!

Hope you enjoyed the podcast -- If you have a question, a comment, or a scripture you'd like "fooled with," you can email us

And if you'd like to support this podcast and other creative work, check out the Patreon page and become a patron!