The characters in the movie actually read this Scripture in a ritual before the husband has intercourse with the handmaid-at the “knees” of the wife.Ībsolutely not! But this is one of those times in culture that the Bible is misrepresented and misappropriated, resulting in negative views of the church.Įven author Margaret Atwood acknowledges that her novel is not genuinely Christian so much as “purportedly Christian.” “Now when Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister, and said to Jacob, ‘Give me children, or else I die!’ And Jacob’s anger was aroused against Rachel, and he said, ‘ Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?’ So she said, ‘Here is my maid Bilhah go in to her, and she will bear a child on my knees, that I also may have children by her.’ Then she gave him Bilhah her maid as wife, and Jacob went in to her.” ( Genesis 30:1-4) This is obviously based on an extremist interpretation of the biblical account of Rachel and Bilhah.

The premise of The Handmaid’s Tale is that environmental pollution has rendered most women infertile, and those who are still able to bear children are forced into sexual slavery as “handmaids” to powerful families. The hierarchical dystopia of Gilead, in which fertile women-‘handmaids’-are forced to bear children for upper class couples, resonated with those horrified by the Trump administration’s attacks on civil liberties and the Republican party’s ongoing attempts to strip federal funding from Planned Parenthood.” Extremist Bible Interpretation in The Handmaid’s Tale According to an article on : “There’s no doubt that The Handmaid’s Tale became the cultural phenomenon it was thanks to President Trump. The Handmaid’s Tale fans see in the show pointed critique of the political environment in the United States today.

The testament handmaid's tale