And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
//Jewish tradition holds that the fruit was figs, grapes, or wheat. Another fruit often proposed is the pomegranate, one of the earliest fruits domesticated. It came to be known as a symbol of fertility and immortality. Greek and Persian mythology uses the pomegranate as a representation of life, regeneration, and marriage. The one fruit that no scholar considers seriously is an apple.
But in the fourth century, the word malum appeared in the Vulgate translation of Genesis in the phrase "the tree of good and evil." Malum, in Latin, means both evil and apple. They've been connected ever since.
In the end, Adam and Eve may not have eaten of any fruit at all. Partaking of the "fruit of the tree of good and evil" may have been an allegorical feast, describing the first sin of the flesh, as explained in the very next verse: And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked.
I'm surprised that the idea that it was any fruit at all (whether apple, pomegranate, fig, or otherwise) is taken seriously by anyone. Surely to insist on such a thing goes against both an allegorical and a literal interpretation of Genesis.
ReplyDeleteIf one reads the story allegorically, then a discussion of such a fine detail becomes moot, and makes about as much sense as debating what colour the father's robe was in the story of the Prodigal Son.
If it's read literally, then surely it's clear that the tree was a very special sort of tree, and was unlike any fruit tree we know today, since neither apples nor pomegranates nor nor figs nor watermelons are known to impart upon their consumers profound metaphysical or moral knowledge.
No one thinks to split hairs about whether the Tree of Life is a pineapple or a plum; why then do people do that for the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil??
Good point! Yet, the evil apple lives on, in stories like Snow White. perhaps we are more fascinated with death than with life.
ReplyDeleteHmm. You could be right about that! Kind of like how so many of us are drawn again and again to cop shows, violent videogames, Shakespeare plays, and murder mysteries rather than.......eh, I can't even think of an example. Even the plots of more positive and life-affirming films/books tend to spend most of their time mired in conflict.
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