Bible
In the Republic of Gilead, the Bible is not a book for private devotion but a tightly controlled instrument of state power. It is kept locked in an ornate brass-bound leather-covered box, to which only the Commander holds the key, a precaution that treats the text as an "incendiary device" whose unsupervised reading could spark rebellion. During the monthly Ceremony, the Commander retrieves the Bible—an ordinary copy with a black cover and gold-edged pages—and reads aloud from it, his performance hesitant and bored, as if he is merely going through a required ritual. The passages he selects are the foundation of Gilead's reproductive theology: God's command to Adam and Noah to "be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth," and the story of Rachel and Leah, in which the barren Rachel tells Jacob, "Give me children, or else I die," and offers her maid Bilhah as a surrogate. These verses are used to justify the Handmaid system, framing the women as vessels for procreation and the Commander's duty as a divine mandate.
The Bible as a Tool of Indoctrination
At the Rachel and Leah Re-education Center, the Bible is weaponized for indoctrination. Every breakfast, the Handmaids are read the same Rachel and Leah story, accompanied by Aunt Lydia's saccharine commentary that they are "getting the best" despite the war and rationing. For lunch, a recorded male voice plays the Beatitudes, but the version is deliberately altered: "Blessed are the silent" is inserted, a phrase that does not appear in the canonical text, and the promise of comfort for those who mourn is left open-ended—"Nobody said when." The Handmaids are never allowed to read the Bible themselves; they can only hear it read to them, a restriction that prevents them from verifying or challenging the regime's interpretations. Aunt Lydia reinforces this control by warning that the Bible is dangerous in the hands of the multitudes, a sentiment the Commander echoes when he tells Offred that what is unsafe for the masses is safe enough for those whose motives are "beyond reproach."
The Bible as a Site of Resistance and Memory
Despite its official use as a tool of oppression, the Bible also becomes a site of private resistance and memory for Offred. In the gymnasium at the Red Center, she and the other Handmaids are made to memorize the line "They also serve who only stand and wait," which Aunt Lydia twists into a lesson in passive obedience. Offred, however, reclaims the phrase in her own mind, applying it to her own waiting—lying down and waiting—as she stares at the plaster eye on her ceiling. Later, alone in her room, she sings "Amazing Grace" to herself, though she cannot remember the words correctly and knows such songs are outlawed because they use words like "free." The Bible also surfaces in her memories of the time before: she recalls the hotel rooms where Bibles were placed in dresser drawers by charitable societies, a casual abundance that now seems impossible. In the Commander's study, she encounters the Bible not as a sacred text but as a physical object—its thin, oniony pages feel soft and dry, like cigarette paper or the powdery paper used to blot nose shine, a tactile memory that connects the forbidden book to the lost world of small luxuries.
The Bible and the Regime's Hypocrisy
The regime's selective use of the Bible exposes its hypocrisy. The Commander reads the story of Rachel and Leah to justify the Ceremony, but Offred notes that the same passage was drummed into them at the Center, where it was presented as a model of female submission. Yet the regime ignores other biblical teachings: the Beatitudes' promise of comfort for the meek is left vague, and the commandment "Thou shalt not kill" is violated daily through executions, Salvagings, and the Particicution. The Bible is also used to enforce gender hierarchy: during the Prayvaganza, a Commander reads from Timothy, "Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection," and "I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man." Offred reflects that this passage should be told to the Wives when they are drinking sherry, a silent critique of the regime's selective piety. The Bible, in Gilead, is not a source of spiritual truth but a prop for a system that claims divine sanction while practicing brutality.
The Bible as a Personal Artifact
For Offred, the Bible also carries personal, pre-Gilead associations. She remembers the hotel rooms where Bibles were placed in dresser drawers, a detail that now seems impossibly casual. She recalls the phrase "In God We Trust" on old paper money, which her mother kept in a scrapbook, and the joke sign beside cash registers: "In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash"—a blasphemy in the current regime. These memories contrast the Bible's former ubiquity and triviality with its current status as a dangerous, locked-away object. The Bible, once a common item, has become a symbol of everything that has been taken away: the freedom to read, to question, to remember a world where faith was not a weapon.
