'Yet he was determined to present the whole of the relevant text of Genesis, however literally false in his own opinion; as by making God walk in the Garden, or punish .the race of serpents. The surface effect is much what Yvor Winters described, but Milton had a very different purpose; the requirement made him give a grim picture of God, as he came to realize increasingly, one would think, while the work of detailed imagination went forward.'
This is interesting - I keep wondering, reading PL, which bits are taken directly from the Bible, never having read the Bible (well, I skimmed Genesis once, and as I recall the whole story of Adam and Eve is relayed very briefly). And also, Milton's consciousness of God's severity, and him rendering the tormented mind of the Christian through Adam and Eve.