The Book of Genesis in the Written Torah has a passage that has long caused consternation and confusion among rabbis – as well as later Christian theologians and writers as well as being used by ardent foes of theistic beliefs like Colonel Robert Ingersol – in the form of Genesis 3:8.
The passage states as follows:
‘And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” And he said “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.”’ (1)
Now the problem of this is that according to the text – and the translation has been a consistent one so it in and of itself is not controversial – Yahweh literally walked in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve. So much so that the sound of his approach was known to Adam. This therefore suggests that Yahweh was physically present, specific to a location (i.e. he was corporeal) and was thus visible to Adam and Eve.
The difficulty this provides to jewish rabbis and Christian theologians is obvious enough, (2) but this physicality of Yahweh – in the vein of the Greek Gods - also has the unintended consequence of linking him to nudism and exposing himself – complete with his penis - to his ‘chosen people’.
Excavations at an early Israelite village at Kuntillet Ajrud in the Sinai Desert – a site only likely lived in for circa 25 years according to Ze’ev Meshel – have unearthed jewish art adding further evidence that the local Canaanite god Yahweh – who became the jewish god we know today – (4) had a wife – aka the Shekinah in modern Judaism or the Canaanite goddess Asherah/Astarte to you and me – (5) but also that Yahweh was depicted in the nude with a large penis or tail (but going by other polytheistic beliefs of the time likely the former).
To quote Nir Hasson:
‘The one causing the controversy shows a man and a women, drawn naively, with crowned heads and holding hands. The man has either a tail or a large penis, and above him the blessing “Yahweh and his Asherah” is written.’ (6)
This would indeed go to suggest that when we see Yahweh walking in the Garden of Eden. We should picture him in the nude with a large penis swinging between his legs rather than some abstract entity or a kindly old man walking in amongst the fruit trees.
References
(1) Gen 3:8-9 (RSV)
(2) For example: https://www.blueletterbible.org/faq/don_stewart/don_stewart_712.cfm
(3) https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-a-strange-drawing-could-undermine-our-entire-idea-of-judaism-1.5973328#article-comments
(4) See Mark Smith, 2001, 'The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel's Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts', 1st Edition, Oxford University Press: New York and John Day, 2002, 'Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan', 2nd Edition, Sheffield Academic Press: New York
(5) For a detailed survey of this long-known fact see William Dever, 2008, ‘Did God Have a Wife?: Archaeology and Folk Religion in Ancient Israel’, 1st Edition, Eerdmans: Grand Rapids
(6) https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-a-strange-drawing-could-undermine-our-entire-idea-of-judaism-1.5973328#article-comments