Mar 30, 2021 07:00:00

Why are the 'forbidden fruits' eaten by Adam and Eve in the Old Testament often depicted in apples?

In a passage from the Old Testament, Adam and Eve were banished from paradise because they

ate the 'forbidden fruit' against God's life. This scene has become the theme of many religious paintings as the moment when the human 'original sin ' was born, and in most of them the 'apple' is depicted as the forbidden fruit. Live Science, a scientific media, explains why the forbidden fruit is now drawn with apples.

Was the'forbidden fruit'in the Garden of Eden really an apple? | Live Science
https://www.livescience.com/what-was-forbidden-fruit-in-eden.html

The story of Adam and Eve is recorded in the Old Testament book of Genesis . God took six days to create the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day he took a rest. After that, he made Adam, the first man, from the soil, and Eve, the first woman, from Adam's ribs.

God made Adam and Eve live in the paradise on earth that he created. At that time, God told them not to eat the fruit of the 'Tree of Life' and the 'Tree of Knowledge' in the center of paradise. However, as a result of the snake seducing Eve to eat the nuts of wisdom in the heart of paradise, the forbidden fruit, Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit.

Adam and Eve had been naked until then, but eating the forbidden fruit made them feel shy and sprinkled fig leaves around their waists. Upon seeing it, God realizes that Adam and Eve have eaten the forbidden fruit against the command, and drives them out of paradise.

In many religious paintings, this forbidden fruit is depicted in the form of an apple, but in fact the Old Testament does not say that the forbidden fruit was an apple.

The book of Genesis, a verbal translation by the Japan Bible Society, describes it as follows, but it only says 'nuts' and does not specify what kind of variety it is.

Now, among the creatures of the field created by the Lord God, the snake was the most cunning. The snake said to the woman, 'Did God really tell you not to take and eat from any tree in the garden?'
The woman said to the snake, 'We are allowed to eat the nuts of the garden,
But for the nuts in the center of the garden, God said, don't take them and eat them, don't touch them, and don't die. '
The snake said to the woman, 'You will never die.
God knows that when you eat it, your eyes will open and you will be like God who knows good and evil. '
When the woman saw the tree, it seemed good to eat, beautiful to the eyes, and good to be smart, so she took the fruit and ate it, and gave it to her husband, who was with her, so he ate it too.
Then they opened their eyes and found that they were naked, so they spelled the fig leaves and wrapped them around their waists.

Also, apples are originally native to the northern Caucasus region of Central Asia and do not grow in the Middle East, where the Hebrews lived. 'תפוח (Tapuaha)', which means apple in modern Hebrew, was used in ancient Hebrew to describe fruits in general. However, Professor Rabbi Ari Zivotofsky of the Department of Brain Science, Bar-Ilan University , Israel, said that at the beginning of the Genesis, 'פרי', which means 'fruit' in Hebrew, appears, while 'תפוח' He points out that it does not appear anywhere in the oldest Hebrew version of the Old Testament.

A book written by a Jewish rabbi around the 6th century states in the Old Testament that 'Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit and were ashamed of their nakedness, and then used fig leaves to hide their bodies.' There is still an interpretation that the forbidden fruit is a fig. There are also many statements claiming that it is an etrog of grapes and wheat that are familiar in the Middle East, or citrus fruits that are familiar to Jews.

However, in the long history, the interpretation that the forbidden fruit is an apple has become mainstream. This was triggered in 382 AD when Pope

Damasus I ordered the translation of the Old Testament from Hebrew to Latin, said Professor Emeritus Robert Appelbaum of the Department of English Literature at Uppsala University, Sweden. I am.

According to Professor Emeritus Appelbaum, scholars at the time used the Hebrew word 'פרי' as the Latin word 'malum (malus)' in translating the Old Testament. In addition to the meaning of 'evil', malum is a word that means 'a fruit with a seed and a core in the middle and a pulp around it', and is often translated specifically as 'apple'. For scholars at the time, the term 'malum' for 'פרי' was a very swanky translation that included the double entender of 'fruit' and 'evil.' However, when reading this Latin Bible, 'malum' was interpreted as 'apple', so the forbidden fruit was mainly drawn in the form of an apple.

In addition, the book of Genesis-themed epic 'The Lost Paradise, ' published in 1667, specifies 'apple' as a term for the forbidden fruit. 'Rakuen' is not a canon of the Bible, but a derivative work based on the Book of Genesis, but it is said that this 'Rakuen' triggered the spread of the 'forbidden fruit = apple' theory all over the world. It has been.

In Albrecht Durer 's 1504 copperplate print 'Adam and Eve,' Eve's forbidden fruit looks like something between an apple and a fig.

Also in Durer's 1507 oil painting 'Adam and Eve,' Eve's forbidden fruit is clearly depicted as an apple.

The following is a work called 'Adam and Eve' drawn by Lucas Cranach in 1525. The forbidden fruit that Eve hands to Adam does look like an apple.

Jan Brueghel and Peter Rubens 's 'Garden of Eden and the Fall of Man' is a 17th-century work that depicts Eve, who was tempted by a snake, handing over the forbidden fruit to Adam. This forbidden fruit also looks like an apple.

Professor Emeritus Appelbaum said, 'I still wonder if the forbidden fruit that Adam and Eve ate in paradise on earth is really the apple we are thinking of, or just a fleshy fruit with seeds in the middle. There is room for this. '