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How Did The Apple Become The Biblical 'Forbidden Fruit'?

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Anonymous

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it was always illustrated as the tempting fruit of knowledge...a carnal object. why? it's not a sensual fruit...it's cold, tart, leather-skinned, hard. why is it traditional to put one on a teacher's desk? knowledge and sex...two things the Christian church warns against. and why was it all placed squarely on the apple?
 
I wonder if it has anything to do with the long history of fermenting apples. Most of the varieties in America were sour and inedible; only good for mashing and making hard cider. (It gave me new respect for "Johnny Appleseed" when I heard that.)

So, perhaps it's considered a "corruptible" fruit.
 
Apples in Western European Myth, Legend and Folklore

Nothing biblical there, but in Proverbs 25:11 it says "A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver." So, not all bad.

Also, from here:

"APPLES OF SODOM Josephus (BJ, IV, viii, 4) says that "the traces (or shadows) of the five cities (of the plain) are still to be seen, as well as the ashes growing in their fruits, which fruits have a color as if they were fit to be eaten; but if you pluck them with your hands they dissolve into smoke and ashes." What this "Dead Sea fruit" is, is uncertain. The name "Dead Sea apples" is often given to the fruit of the Solanum Sodomaean "a prickly shrub with fruit not unlike a small yellow tomato." Cheyne thinks that the fruits referred to by Josephus (compare Tacitus Hist. v.37) may be either

(1) those of the `osher tree (`usar, Calotropis procera, described by Hasselquist (Travels, 1766)), found in abundance about Jericho and near the Dead Sea, which are filled with dust when they have been attacked by an insect, leaving the skin only entire, and of a beautiful color. Tristram describes the fruit as being "as large as an apple of average size, of a bright yellow color, hanging three or four together close to the stem"; or as suggested by Tristram

(2) those of the wild colocynth; the fruit is fair of aspect with a pulp which dries up into a bitter powder (EB, article "Sodom," col. 4669, note 2). This colocynth is supposed to be the "wild vine" mentioned 2 Kings 4:39. The "vine of Sodom" of Deuteronomy 32:32 has been supposed to bear the "Dead Sea fruit"; but most modern writers regard the passage as figurative.

W.L. Walker"
Click to expand...

edited to ditch a lame link and generally prettify
 
AH-HA! Avalon...Pomona. since it was associated with life and paradise in the pagan world, the Bible bent it into something associated with rotting; that the only way to life-eternal and paradise was thru a deity and not an object.
 
synthwerk said:
it was always illustrated as the tempting fruit of knowledge...a carnal object. why?
Click to expand...

One of the things I recall vividly from Sunday school was our teacher explaining that the 'fruit of knowledge' is traditionally the pomegranate in middle eastern culture. Apparently in colder climes the apple (which looks sort of similar) stands in as substitute. Where he heard this, I have no idea.
 
synthwerk said:
AH-HA! Avalon...Pomona. since it was associated with life and paradise in the pagan world, the Bible bent it into something associated with rotting; that the only way to life-eternal and paradise was thru a deity and not an object.
Click to expand...

Please note that the Bible mentions "the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil" but does NOT name the apple as that fruit.

The apple is a convenient moniker applied to the unspecified or unique 'fruit' by preachers (Catholic ones) during the later middle ages when sermons and then reading of the tales of the Bible became popular as part of the previously staid and stylized services. People throughout Europe were familiar with the apple, and it saved the priest from having to explain over and over "No, we don't know for certain exactly what type of 'fruit' the bible is referring to".
 
this whole question was prompted by a calling card from a strip joint on Bourbon St. it was shoved into my hand one night there(on the street, not the club...*spank*). the club is called Temptations and their logo is a big apple. i looked at it and thought of a kid putting an apple on teachers desk.

how mixed a signal is that...when i am usually associating things with sexuality and then i see something that is obviously and blatantly pointing out sex and i associate it with innocence and childhood and school and learning. weird.
 
And you use the word "Spank" in your post.

So what was it you were wanting to learn, Synth?

:rofl:

And enlighten us even more: did you ever go to the club? :wow:
 
what business do i have in a strip joint? i, unlike the men who frequent those places, can have a relationship and convo with a woman in a non-sexual way. plus, i hang out at the s&m and goth clothing shops and talk to the girls who are working the late shift.

it's a general query. just fishing to see how the symbolism of the apple became so intertwined. it's got a nice duality.
 
How about some catch phrases?

"You're the apple of my eye"... Heh heh dirty bugger!

"An apple a day keeps the doctor away"...Hmmm.

"Comparing apples to oranges"...not much ambiguity there.

What are some others?
 
Don't upset the apple cart.

One bad apple spoils the whole cart.



Why is the 'Adams Apple' called so?
 
The fruit from genesis was wrongly interpreted as apple due to the vaguaries of the english language - I think the true translation has the fruit as being a pommegranate.
 
Adam's apple is suppposed to be the piece bitten from the Biblical fruit.
 
something to do with pomme meaning fruit in general in old english and also fruit in french (pomme de terre, pomme-granate) but also apple :confused:
 
pi23 said:
I think the true translation has the fruit as being a pommegranate.
Click to expand...

Talk about knocking the poetry
right out of it! :)

I can't even SAY "pommegranate of my eye"
without snickering!

TVgeek
 
Caroline said:
Adam's apple is suppposed to be the piece bitten from the Biblical fruit.
Click to expand...

"Adam's Pomegranate" hmmm. Not nearly as catchy as phrase. If we're going to be alliterative, maybe we should rename the first man as Peter, or Patrick or some such. No?

I know, my coat's right over there
 
pommegranites

on a dull note- i've been listening to radio 4 recently, and was coincidentally lucky(!) enough to tune into a program devoted to the humble pommegranite......although the pommegranite was originally a fertility symbol in the romo-grecian (pagan?) religions, which Christianity came in and trampled things, the pommegranite was transformed into a fidelity symbol instead, an excellent example of the way the religion can censor a slightly unsavoury meaning to fit its own philosophies.
 
synthwerk said:
AH-HA! Avalon...Pomona. since it was associated with life and paradise in the pagan world, the Bible bent it into something associated with rotting; that the only way to life-eternal and paradise was thru a deity and not an object.
Click to expand...

avalon literaly means island of apple trees in welsh and has in fact got nothing in paticular to do with pagans, indeed this mystical island (posibly Bardsea island) was reputed to be the final resting place of one of the first Christian kings of Britain, Authur.
 
I heard that programme to Itshistory, very interesting fruit with a lot of folkloric traditions. Supposedly every one has 365 seeds, and one seed is a "seed from paradise", so if you manage to eat all of them, you're guaranteed to go to heaven, but since "every pomegranite has a bad seed" (a middle eastern saying), you can never eat all the seeds. So we're buggered before we start.
 
If you look carefully at the rider-waite tarot deck the pommegranate appears quite a few times. The symbology of the pommegranate seems to be just as fertile as that of the humble apple...
 
I thought this thread would be about the corruption of the *word* apple. As in, A napple becoming An apple. Such as with A Nadder.
 
The current issue of New Scientist features a picture of an apple sliced in half. When I saw it I thought 'that looks like a vulva'. Perhaps this is why the apple came to be regarded as the forbidden fruit. Take a look and compare with traditional, i.e. ancient, representations of the female sex.
 
Isn't fruit just a metaphor for the resulting acheivment of a long arduous process?

Knowledge is the fruit and fruit is the knowledge ergo, God wanted humans to stay dumb, 'nuff said.

(obviously it didn't matter if they ate the fruit or not)
 
synthwerk said:
the fig, when opened up, looks more like the female sex...a lot more. heh
Click to expand...
Hmmm... American fannies really are different from European ones. :p
 
Apparently, the apple is seen as the 'forbidden fruit' because of a pun on the Latin malum meaning 'evil'. Mary is sometimes depicted carrying an apple because she is the new Eve theough whom mankind is redeemed from Original Sin. The Christ-Child is also sometimes depicted with an apple to symbolise redemption. Three apples are the attribute of St. Dorothea, who was persecuted for refusing to marry a pagan. She was condemned to death, and the Governor's secretary, Theophilius, mocked her, asking her for fruit from heaven. At the moment of her death, an angel appeared to Theophilius and presented him with three roses and three apples, although it was midwinter. He became a convert and was himself martyred. The apple is sometimes represented in art as a pear or quince.
 
Yeah, I appreciate what's been said before but take a look at this picture in New Scientist. It's been done in false colour which is why I've never seen the connection before.

Haven't people been saying that the ancestor of the modern apple was probably much smaller (and most likely possessing a larger seed case). I'm just saying that the use of the apple as a transliteration of the original hebrew may be a lot more obvious then previously thought. All this talk of the pomegranate may be a load of phooey.
 
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