>>19229806The anthropomorphic character of Yahweh Elohim, an earthbound god little different from mortal humans, is highlighted in this passage. Here Yahweh Elohim dwells on earth—presumably in a palace or temple, although it does not explicitly appear in Genesis 3—and walks about like an ordinary human in the cool evening breeze of the pleasure garden, in imagery influenced by the temperate breezes of the Islands of the Blessed (Homer, Odyssey 4.560–565; Pindar, Olympian Odes 2.55–85; Strabo, Geography 3.2.13). Yahweh Elohim is the opposite of omniscient, calling out to find man’s whereabouts, questioning him on his suspected disobedience, and querying the first woman as well. This depiction of Yahweh Elohim as possessing knowledge limited to the senses, like ordinary mortals, also appears in Gen 4:9, where Yahweh questions Cain on the whereabouts of his brother. Marcion would later point out these details as proof that the biblical god Yahweh was not the supreme god of the universe, but belonged to a lesser order of deity (Harnack 1990: 67–92). Similarly, the lesser gods of Plato’s Timaeus, unlike the Demiurge, appear neither omnipotent nor omniscient.43
