Genesis
3:8-13: The God Who Walks through the Garden
8 Then they heard the sound of steps
of Yahve Elohim, who was waking in the garden during the breeze of the day. And
the man and his wife hid themselves form the presence of Yahveh Elohim among
the trees of the garden.
9 Yahve Elohim called to the man, and
said: Where are you?
10 He responded: I heard the sound of
your steps in the garden, and I was afraid because I’m naked, so I hid myself.
11 And [Yahve] said: Who taught you
that you are naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not
to eat?
12 The man answered: The woman whom
you gave me, she gave me [the fruit] from the tree, and I ate.
13 Yahve Elohim said to the woman:
What is this that you have done? The woman answered: The serpent deceived me,
and I ate.
When examining this story, we should
avoid disfiguring it with prejudice coming from later Christian dogma. A god
may be called “Almighty” (upermenēs), but the truth is that the gods
were also portrayed in very human fashion. Susan Niditch points out that in
trying to explain the story of the fall,
Modern scholars try to make sense of
what they consider to be an all-powerful, all-knowing deity who appears to fear
human’s possible acquisition of knowledge and immortality, who has to deal with
humans on the loose, who has tricky snakes sneaking around his back, and who
must adjust in a totally ad hoc way to the events around him. Not unlike all
the great heads of pantheons such as Odin or Zeus, he is a powerful creator
god—more powerful than all other forces—but he can be tricked, becoming subject
to the wiles of those whom he has created, such as Loki, Prometheus, the snake,
Adam and Eve. He is, in short, a parent. (Niditch, Folklore, 42)
If we idealized Yahve as a god who is
invisible, omniscient and essentially different from the world, it is
impossible to experience the dramatic force of Genesis 3:7-13. In the words of
Hermann Gunkel: “The narrative does not report that Yahweh knew or saw it all,
rather that strolling in the Garden, he accidentally discovered the
transgression.” (Gunkel, Genesis, 18. Cf. Gen 18;20-21, where Yahve
needs to walk down to the valley to look at the situation). The drama of the
story only comes to life when we imagine a god who possesses the limitations
and advantages of a physical body. He seems to be a god who has legs and
feet; a god who went for a walk to refresh his body at a time when
he would have enjoyed a breeze. The suspense of the narrative reaches its
climax in vv. 8-13, when the mythographer reports that Adam and Eve heard the
steps of the god who “was walking in the garden” (Gen 3:8). The couple realized
that he was approaching, and they were thrown into a state of panic.
Yahve does not know where Adam is, so
he calls him: “Where are you?” (3:9). Adam and Eve were hiding from the god,
and we ruin the story when we insist that humans cannot hide form an omniscient
god. Note that this god is able to speak out loud, which takes for
granted that he has an articulatory system that allows him to talk (lips,
tongue, teeth, vocal chords, etc.). It seems the god who also equipped with an
auditory system that transmitted sound waves to his brain for Yahveh was able
to hear and understand when Adam answered: “I heard the sound of your steps in
the garden, and I was afraid because I’m naked, so I hid myself” (3:10). This
god could learn something he did not know, for he’s surprised that Adam knew he
was naked. Yahve infers that Adam must have eaten from the tree of knowledge,
so he demands more information to confirm his guess: “Who taught you that you
are naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?”
(3:11). (A modern prejudice drives Wenham to argue that the question are
rhetorical, because according to him we are not dealing with an “ignorant
inquirer” but an “all-knowing detective” [Genesis, 77]. A real
omniscient God doesn’t need to be a “detective [!]) Adam accuses his wife, and
the god reprimands her: “What is tis that you have done?” (3:13). She defends
herself accusing the serpent. As it happens with other gods of the Ancient Nera
East, Yahve acts like a human being. And it is precisely this representation
which allows the mytographer to write a story that evolves in such a dramatic
way within a space-time structure completely alien to any immutable and
omniscient divine nature. In fact, these attributes would have made it
impossible to write a narrative that unfolds in this world. (Humberto Casanova,
Imagining God: Myth and Metaphor [Eugene, Oreg.: Wipf and Stock, 2020], 63-66)
Further Reading:
Lynn Wilder vs. Latter-day Saint (and Biblical) Theology on Divine Embodiment