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Summary
- Genesis never names the fruit: it is “the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden,” the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
- The apple may come from a Latin pun on malum, apple, and malum, evil; Azzan Yadin-Israel of Rutgers traces it instead to Old French, where pomme came to mean apple.
- According to Yadin-Israel, the apple appears in French art in the late eleventh century, and Milton’s Paradise Lost later calls the fruit an apple.
- In Dürer’s 1504 engraving, the Metropolitan Museum identifies Eve’s tree as a fig, not an apple.
- The rabbis of the Talmud and Genesis Rabbah proposed a fig, grapes, wheat and a citron, and one said God will never reveal the tree.
- Eve ate first and “gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat” (Genesis 3:6).
- Paul wrote that “Adam was not deceived” (1 Timothy 2:14), yet traced sin’s entry to “one man” (Romans 5:12).
Bibliography (Click to show)
- The Holy Bible, King James Version: Genesis 2:9, 2:16–17, 3:3–7, 3:12–13; Romans 5:12; 2 Corinthians 11:3; 1 Timothy 2:14. BibleGateway.
- The Latin Vulgate, Genesis 2:17 and 3:1–7. BibleGateway.
- Babylonian Talmud, Berakhot 40a, The William Davidson Talmud (Koren Noé). Sefaria.
- Genesis Rabbah (Bereshit Rabbah) 15:7, The Sefaria Midrash Rabbah, translated by Joshua Schreier (2022). Sefaria.
- The Apocalypse of Moses, chapters 20–21, translated by L. S. A. Wells, in R. H. Charles, The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament (Oxford, 1913). Wesley Center Online.
- Theophilus of Antioch, To Autolycus, book 2, chapter 25, translated by Marcus Dods, Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 2. New Advent.
- Augustine, The City of God, book 14, chapter 11, translated by Marcus Dods. New Advent.
- Philaret (Drozdov) of Moscow, The Longer Catechism of the Orthodox, Catholic, Eastern Church, question 163. pravoslavieto.com.
- Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, on Genesis 3. Christian Classics Ethereal Library.
- Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary (Oxford, 1879), entries mālum and malus. Perseus Digital Library.
- “‘Paradise Lost’: How the Apple Became the Forbidden Fruit,” The Salt, NPR, 30 April 2017, interviewing Robert Appelbaum. NPR.
- “How France Turned the Forbidden Fruit into an Apple, with Dr. Azzan Yadin-Israel,” The French History Podcast. thefrenchhistorypodcast.com.
- John Milton, Paradise Lost, books 1, 9 and 10. Project Gutenberg.
- Albrecht Dürer, Adam and Eve, engraving, 1504, catalogue entry 19.73.1. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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