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I think the apple in Eden was representing disobedience.

What's your opinion on what the apple meant?

The apple was metaphoric fascism. It came from the Tree of Knowledge. The lesson was not to ask too many questions thereby maintaining innocence and an ignorance is bliss state. It's one of the first lessons we learned in parochial school. The second lesson was obedience. The third was to have faith that the creator of all these lessons had our best interests in mind. I focused on the fig leaf over Adam's parts and a lot of numbers 1, 2 & 3 didn't stick.

Interesting question... and to answer same it might help to be a bit more accurate in the terms used. The Bible never identifies the "forbidden fruit" as an apple. In fact, no specific name is ever given the fruit, which only lends additional credence to the now-commonly held view by most Biblical scholars that the fruit is, as you have also surmised, a metaphor for something else.

I don't believe the metaphor is disobedience itself given that the act of eating the "forbidden fruit" was... disobedience. Thus the verb of "eating" is disobedience, not the noun of the "forbidden fruit." Thus, the fruit was a metaphor for something else: an act or, perhaps more specifically, a practice.

Further, the Bible does identify... though in indistinct terms... what the fruit represents: the "Knowledge of Good and Evil" that, according to the proverbial "serpent" will have Humankind become like the "Gods" knowing good from evil. This is the real clue here that the fruit represents knowledge... of a "forbidden" variety that would have us all know "good from evil" and become like "the Gods."

Personally, and as many Biblical scholars also now believe, I believe the "forbidden fruit" involves specific sexual knowledge and/or practices that were capable of revealing to participants the true knowledge of "good and evil" as has remained lost ever since this original "Fall" ... which is why thereafter, and for the first time, Adam & Eve saw that they were naked and were "ashamed"... and also as only after this did they know of sex, itself, and finally began to have children despite the supposedly 100s or perhaps even 1000s of years they had lived in the Garden of Eden prior to finally eating of this "forbidden fruit."

Again... all of this is allegory and not meant to be taken literally. Instead, we have ancient hidden knowledge being couched in allegorical fables intended to teach morality lessons. Thus, it is not so much history that is being retold, but instead retells far more accurately the morality and values and beliefs of those who developed the allegory, itself.

And, most assuredly, perhaps the greatest point, the greatest "moral" of this fable is... tragically if not also unforgivably... the false vilification of women as unable to resist sensual temptation due to their far-superior emotional and sensual capacities... which are viewed by men in this fable as evil and wrong. As it will hopefully someday be realized... it was not "Eve's" fabled action of "disobedience" that brought about the true "Fall"... but instead, it was the misogynist intolerance and jealousy of "Adam" and men thereafter who vilified as "weak" a woman's far-greater potentials that has resulted in the true "Fall" of Humankind that continues to this very day and that perpetuates eternally the enormous "Rift of Separation" (Gospel of Philip) between men and women forever preventing such relationships to ever achieve the true potentials for joy and fulfillment for which they were originally intended.

Just my $0.02 worth.


- Upir'

There was a documentary on this subject of what the fruit possibly was according to location. Even tho no one knows for sure, to me it is just symbolism.

It's often portrayed as an apple but as previously stated no specific fruit is named. Why, I wonder, have people focussed on apples?

Isn't focusing on the type of fruit kind of missing the point?

Like so many have all ready pointed out, the term is for a 'lesson' or a series of them.

The fruit could have been apple or a "pomegranate" perhaps would be something some may wish to explore on their own in direct relation to this forums post.

None the less, some valid points are made.

As for me, the apple works I guess...but the greater debate to come will surely be the "species of apple" LOL. .. Golden, for the odviously biblical glory? Red for the evil the "apple" was to bring...or maybe, just maybe it was that pesky Crab Apple just spittin' juice on a bad day....

G.D'N.

I heard somewhere that apples are not indigenous to the Midlle East, so it could've been some other fruit...

To me, what's strange about the story is that the 'fruit' is from the Tree of Knowledge...why would God want mankind to remain in ignorance, when he made us in his image, so to speak?

I recently had to read John Milton's Paradise Lost.
In Paradise Lost Eve's first thought after partaking of the fruit from the tree of knowledge is to convince Adam to eat from the tree as well.
After Adam eats from the tree he's over come with a powerful lust for Eve.
It seems as if John Milton may have interpreted the fruit to be sexuality, or lust.
As for what I believe the "fruit" to be, I have no idea.
I don't think any of us do, that's the great thing about it, it's open for our own interpretation.

I agree that it is a metaphor for innocence.

Some one was asking, "Why apples?"

It all goes back to translation, and what is lost in it.

In Western Europe, the fruit was depicted as an apple, because of a misunderstanding of, or perception of intentional dual meaning in, the Latin malus, which as an adjective means evil, but as a noun means apple. In the Vulgate, Genesis 2:17 describes the tree as "de ligno autem scientiae boni et mali/the wood, indeed, of good and evil knowledge" Genesis 2:17 ("mali" is the genitive of "malus").
This also where we get the term Adam's apple.

Some Slavonic texts state that the "forbidden fruit" was actually the grape, that was later changed in its nature and made into something good, much as the serpent was changed by losing its legs and speech.

Other Eastern Christians sometimes assume that the "forbidden fruit" was the fig, from the account of their using leaves of this tree to cover themselves (also the fig tree is the only fruit tree explicitly mentioned in the Genesis 3 context).
Otherwise, Islam regards a fig or an olive as the forbidden fruit.
Still, many believe the quince which pre-dates apples and native to Southwest Asia was the forbidden fruit.

Some even contest that it was a tomato, called a citron.

However it is a metaphor for sexual awakening, not an actual fruit.

some text from wikipedia

I'm with Upir. The fruit is a womb. What more bountiful symbol for female sexuality, except maybe a pomegranate?

the pomegranate is what the documentary on tv was suggesting

This is from Wikipedia:

n Latin, the words for 'apple' and for 'evil' are similar in the singular (malus — apple, malum — evil) and identical in the plural (mala). This may also have influenced the apple's becoming interpreted as the biblical 'forbidden fruit'.

Then there's the gay thing.

The larynx in the human throat has been called Adam's apple because of the folk tale that the bulge was caused by the forbidden fruit sticking in the throat of Adam. The apple as symbol of sexual seduction has sometimes been used to imply sexuality between men, possibly in an ironic vein. Or in a deep throat way.

Lets see; Perfect Man & Woman in Paradise, all the time in the world, no TV or books to read, tame and wild animals all around them, the terms; "forbidden fruit," "the serpent" ( the most beautiful of animals), "Tree of Knowledge" and then a "Fig leaf" with Guilt written all over it and covering their "privates" no less.

If anyone above the age of 13 years doesn't know what this story was suppose to mean, then I'm not going to ruin your fantasy, mis-education or ignorance. Unfortunately though, you're not alone because it isn't taught correctly anymore. One thing that gets me under my skin a little but what are you to do.

If one would deem it an actual fruit, then I would state for the record that it would either be a Palmagranate, or a plant called the Amaranth.

If one were to think metaphorically, as both the bible as well as the Freemasonic fraternity do, and all the rest of those individuals that teach with philosophical metaphors, I would follow other posts here to describe attributes that may coincide with the meaning of the parable itself.

The apple is indigenous to Turkey, which according to a segment on 60 minutes is also the birthplace of Christianity. Not Jerusulem - Turkey.

The apple figures symbolically in Greek lit, too.

My thinking it was more a challenge then anything else. We always hate being told not to do something. If someone tells us not to do something we will go out and do it. My prospective is it stems back to then. Adam and Eve was told NOT to eat the fruit from the tree and then go eat it.

A correction to this post:

"The apple is indigenous to Turkey, which according to a segment on 60 minutes is also the birthplace of Christianity. Not Jerusulem - Turkey."

I would do some research pertaining to the origin of Christianity and cross reference it with the Emporer Constantine of Rome. As Constantine was one of the original founding fathers of Christianity.

Any further corrections are welcome... Including my post as well.

Your right soulshroude, the keyword being birthplace. Also, the 60 minutes segment was on Orthodox Christianity, aka Greek Orthodox, which has its own patriarch in Turkey. I'm not clear on exactly what the differences between Orthodox Christianity, and regular christianity and catholocism are. The patriarch looks like a wizard, though, straight out of Harry Potter.

I would put it down as disobedience, they were suppose to of been given a chose. If you have been given some options then it wouldnt be disobedience.

not disobedience.


The apple represents KNOWLEDGE.


Genisis 2.15 :

The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. 16 And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die."


To know the nature of good and evil, is to be like god, because only god should know the true nature of good and evil.

but whatever...

Exactly, Infernalmage... the "forbidden fruit" (it was NEVER described as an apple) represents knowledge that, as I said earlier, is "... of a 'forbidden' variety that would have us all know 'good from evil' and become like 'the Gods'."

The key caveat to this I would add is that it would appear this "forbidden knowledge" was of a distinctly sexual variety... which is why after eating this fruit Adam and Eve were only then aware that they were naked and only thereafter began to have sex and, thus... children.

I'd rather focus on the apple than the other poppycock its supposedly meaning.

Apples are good and healthy and if I saw an apple in the garden of eden i'd of ate it also

besides an apple a day keeps the doctor away

now i'm being silly

I must admit though Upir's $0.02 was probably the best $0.02 i've ever read about this subject in the past, cheers Upir