Why did apples get such a bum-rap?
Everything was wonderful . . . and then an apple.
Adam lived in a paradise. Yahweh, our Elohim walked with him and talked with him. Adam was married to the most beautiful woman in the world. He had it all!
. . . and then an apple.
All the photos from the time (including the one attached to this article) show a naked guy, a naked woman (boy, howdy – I do love the dress code of the time), a naked snake, and a naked apple.
How could a piece of fruit cause all the harm that befalls our two lovebirds starting in Genesis 3:16:
16 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. 17 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; 18 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; 19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
Genesis 3:16-19
Maybe the eating of the apple is not exactly literal (the consequences are literal – we see them around us today). Yahweh does use figurative language in many places (e.g., “the Finger of God” is used nearly a dozen times in the Old Testament. Since Yahweh is a Spirit, He does not literally have a finger) and any Bible researcher worth their salt has a reference book concerning Figures of Speech.
Let’s start with the ‘apple’ of Genesis 3:6. The KJV actually uses the word “fruit” from the Hebrew word, priy meaning, “fruit (literally or figuratively), bough, or reward”. It is a derivative of the root word, parah, meaning “to bear fruit (literally or figuratively), bring forth, or increase”.
I looked at twenty-eight (28) different translations and none of them used the word “apple”. Each one used the word “fruit” [priy]. The word fruit could mean any number of literal foods that grow on a tree . . . or any number of figurative definitions.
St. Jerome’s fourth century (A.D.) translation of the Bible is to blame for the disparagement of the apple. “When Jerome translated the Old Testament into Latin, he opted for a clever, though confusing, wordplay using the term malus. Malus has two distinct translations:
1. An adjective meaning “evil” or “bad”, or
2. A noun used to refer to “seed-bearing fruit such as apples, figs, and peaches”
As early Christians wrestled with which fruit first tempted Adam and Eve, the apple made sense. Not only did the Latin pun lead to a common misunderstanding about the fruit identified in Genesis, but the apple’s prominent, supernatural role in pagan mythology (e.g. Golden Apples in Norse mythology, etc.)” [https://aleteia.org/2018/12/13/how-st-jeromes-pun-made-apples-the-forbidden-fruit/]
What sealed the apple’s fate as the “forbidden fruit” was a popular 16th-century engraving by German artist Albrecht Dürer.
Completed in 1504, it became the template for masterpieces by painters such as Lucas Cranach the Elder. Cranach’s depiction of Adam and Eve which includes a smattering of apples hanging from the tree above the couple.
By the time that John Milton’s epic poem (Paradise Lost) was completed in the 17th century, the vilification of the apple was complete. Countless works of art depicted it as the culpable fruit and Milton simply finished the job by speaking of Adam and Eve’s disastrous snack as the Apple (twice) – with a capital “A”. Milton cemented the food’s reputation as the “forbidden fruit.” [https://www.ripleys.com/weird-news/was-the-forbidden-fruit-apple/]
Lost in this narrative is whether the “forbidden fruit” was an actual food that could be consumed. This is vital to understanding the context of what is happening in Genesis 6 and in our salvation today! I will examine this in the next post, “Forbidden Fruit”.