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Brainstorming - OT - Judges

In my previous post, I reviewed the scriptural content in the Book of Judges. In this post, I'll summarise the scientific themes that I've been able to come up with, that link somehow to the text, which I could build a lesson plan on top of.

  • In Judges 6:15, Gideon exclaims to Heavenly Father, "Oh my Lord, wherewith shall I save Israel? behold, my family is poor in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house". I thought about linking this to the idea of small creatures that can do great things. Ants and beetles are great examples of small animals that are very powerful for their size.
Beetles are strong creatures for their size. Photo by Weronika Romanowska on Unsplash

  • In Judges 6:39-40, Gideon requests of Heavenly Father to keep his fleece dry during the night and to let the dew settle on the rest of the ground. "And God did so that night: for it was dry upon the fleece only, and there was dew on all the ground." Perhaps we could talk about what the dew is, and do a small science experiment to create some dew in the classroom. The link here could be that dew is a physical manifestation of water vapour that is all around us, which we can't normally see, since it's in gaseous form, but which liquifies when the temperatures drop. Similarly, the holy spirit is something that's around us that we can't see, but we can feel it when we receive a spiritual prompting. 

  • Judges 7:5 has a funny quote. Heavenly Father helps Gideon to find worthy volunteers using a somewhat unusual criteron: "Every one that lappeth of the water with his tongue, as a dog lappeth, him shalt thou set by himself." There's some really interesting science on how dogs lap water, which this LA Times article summarises. It used to be thought that dogs would use their tongues as ladles to scoop up water into their mouths, but recent research shows that the dogs strike the water with their tongues and accelerate it, forcing it to rise in a column that they can catch in their mouths.
Does anyone have any thoughts on these ideas, or any other suggestions? If so, feel free to comment below or on the Twitter thread.
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