How did the apple from the Garden of Eden become the “forbidden fruit” symbolizing temptation, sin, and the fall of man?
“‘Adam and Eve ate a pom,’ meant ‘Adam and Eve ate a fruit.’ Over time, however, the meaning of pom changed.”
An attention-grabbing Super Bowl ad looked at what would have happened if Adam and Eve ate an avocado instead of an apple. Although a spoof, the Bible never actually specifies what Adam and Eve ate in the Garden of Eden.
Azzan Yadin-Israel, a professor of Jewish studies and classics at Rutgers University, tackles the question in his new book Temptation Transformed: The Story of How the Forbidden Fruit Became an Apple (University of Chicago Press, 2022).
Here, Yadin-Israel unpacks the evolution of the identity of the forbidden fruit:
The post Why do we think the ‘forbidden fruit’ is an apple? appeared first on Futurity.
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