Two Things, and Three

1. CFB. OK, as predicted in some press last week, Alabama defense started out facing Apocalypse, the military term would be Incoming, in golf Fore, and Jan 7 in Miami it will be Duck. My only Roll Tide game of regular season and the first few minutes it looked like change the channel and run for the bathroom to vomit (let the reader beware). At 9:00 ET tonight Alabama may still be #1 but in my ignorant view they were outplayed start to finish even with a 49-42 win. For a while it looked safe at 42-21 and then the Tide started going out, ending up saved by the clock as one of those afternoons where TG there wasn’t another five minutes to play. Another five minutes and it would have been as bad as last year. Plus, in 78 years I’ve never seen a QB better protected than Manziel was, he had incredible working room. The rest of the teams on the Aggie schedule better figure out how to get to him or game over.

Uncle Bubba won’t be Roll Tide again until the BCS championship, when as GoBlue & anti-Meyer fan I look more and more optimistically for Tide v. Ducks not Bucks.

62-7 is not football.

Sorry, PennState.

Gamecocks safe with a cushion but don’t be gamecocky about UCF in Orlando week after next.

UMich, what’s happening? WTH, Blue?

What’s to celebrate? Aggies are not on the Gator schedule.

Many, many thanks for all the kind Happy B’day wishes.

2. Sunday school questions for today re: Genesis 3

7 years ago HNES student anguish, why did God put the tree there?
At Gen 2:16 the woman isn’t present, only Adam. Does this mitigate her guilt?
Why would God forbid? God’s own reasons?
Doesn’t want the gardener taking over decisions that rightfully are the owners?
Doesn’t want Adam deciding what is good/evil, right/wrong, correct/incorrect?
The Tree is not about knowledge, as such, it’s knowledge of good & evil, maybe it’s more about making ethical judgments. Does God not want the gardener making moral decisions that are God’s alone?
Adam’s duty as gardener: unquestioning obedience?
Hebrew homophone play on serpent’s characteristic: ָערּום sneaky, crafty, and earthlings ֵעיֹרם naked? Is the JE writer playing games with us?
Serpent scoffs: did God lie to Adam? If you say “no, Adam did die” are you rationalizing to protect God? Does God need you to protect him?
“Where are you?” Does it conflict with God’s supposed omniscience, or is God asking more deeply? Where do you stand with Me, Adam? Adam: afraid, fearful, hiding, in disobedience, opposition and competition.
Adam: “the woman ... ” standard human blame-shifting?
God doesn’t ask the serpent “why?”
How much of the story and punishment are etiological?
Does JE mean the serpent as Satan?
Anything significant about the serpent being cursed while ish and isha are not cursed? For ish the ground is cursed but ish is not. What’s the nature of that curse?
Is death part of the judgment? Was death originally not part of God’s plan for the earthlings?
Was death always at the end, but now the man and woman know that death is at the end and that’s the punishment, fearing death? If so, is this knowledge or knowledge of good and evil?
Lovingkindness of God-the-tailor?
Where did the skins come from? Had God been killing animals and eating meat?
Are the skins from which God made their clothes an anachronism? If so, would it have bothered or even occurred to the folks sitting around the campfire hearing the story?

3. TW, born with Chevy Suburban