Forbidden fruit is a name given to the fruit growing in the Garden of Eden which God commands mankind not to eat. In the biblical narrative, Adam and Eve eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and are exiled from Eden. As a metaphor outside of the Abrahamic religions the phrase typically refers to any indulgence or pleasure that is considered illegal or immoral.
Biblical narrative
The narrative of the Book of Genesis places the first man and woman, Adam and Eve, in the Garden of Eden where they may eat the fruit of many trees but are forbidden by God to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. In Genesis 3, a serpent tempts the woman: Desiring this wisdom, the woman eats the forbidden fruit and gives some to the man who also eats it. They become aware of their "nakedness" and make fig-leaf clothes, and hide themselves when God approaches. God curses the serpent, the woman then the man, and expels the man and woman from the Garden and thereby from eternal life.
Quranic narrative
According to the Quran, Surah Al-A'raf 7:19 describes Adam and his wife in Paradise where they may eat what is provided, except for one Tree they must not eat from, lest they be considered Zalimun. Surah Al-A'raf 7:20–22 describes Shaitan who whispers to Adam and his wife and deceives them. When they taste of the tree, their shame becomes manifest to them and they begin to cover themselves with leaves.
Identifications and depictions
The word fruit appears in Hebrew as פֶּ֫רִי. As to which fruit may have been the forbidden fruit of the Garden of Eden, possibilities include apple, grape, pomegranate, fig, carob, etrog or citron, pear, and mushrooms. The pseudepigraphicBook of Enoch describes the tree of knowledge: "It was like a species of the Tamarind tree, bearing fruit which resembled grapes extremely fine; and its fragrance extended to a considerable distance. I exclaimed, How beautiful is this tree, and how delightful is its appearance!". In Islamic tradition, the fruit is commonly either identified with wheat or with grapevine.
Apple
In Western Europe, the fruit was often depicted as an apple. This was possibly because of a misunderstanding of – or a pun on – , a native Latin noun which means evil, and mālum, another Latin noun, borrowed from Greek μῆλον, which means apple. In the Vulgate, Genesis 2:17 describes the tree as de ligno autem scientiae boni et mali : "but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil". The larynx, specifically the laryngeal prominence that joins the thyroid cartilage, in the humanthroat is noticeably more prominent in males and was consequently called an Adam's apple, from a notion that it was caused by the forbidden fruit getting stuck in Adam's throat as he swallowed it.
Grape
says that the fruit was a grape, made into wine. The Zohar explains similarly that Noah attempted to rectify the sin of Adam by using grape wine for holy purposes. The midrash of Bereishit Rabah states that the fruit was grape, or squeezed grapes. Chapter 4 of 3 Baruch, also known as the Greek Apocalypse of Baruch, designates the fruit as the grape. 3 Baruch is a first to third century text that is either Christian or Jewish with Christian interpolations.
Fig
The Bible states in the book of Genesis that Adam and Eve had made their own fig leaf clothing: "And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig-leaves together, and made themselves girdles". Rabbi Nechemia supports the idea that the fruit was a fig, as it was from fig leaves that God made garments for Adam and Eve upon expelling them from the Garden. "By that with which they were made low were they rectified." Since the fig is a long-standing symbol of female sexuality, it enjoyed a run as a favorite understudy to the apple as the forbidden fruit during the Italian Renaissance, Michelangelo Buonarroti depicting it as such in his masterpiece fresco on the Sistine Chapel ceiling.
Pomegranate
Proponents of the theory that the Garden of Eden was located somewhere in what is now known as the Middle East suggest that the fruit was actually a pomegranate, a plant indigenous from Iran to the Himalayas and cultivated since ancient times. The association of the pomegranate with knowledge of the underworld as provided in the Ancient Greek legend of Persephone may also have given rise to an association with knowledge of the otherworld, tying-in with knowledge that is forbidden to mortals.
Wheat
proposes that the fruit was wheat, because "a baby does not know to call its mother and father until it tastes the taste of grain." In Hebrew, wheat is "khitah", which has been considered to be a pun on "khet", meaning "sin". Although commonly confused with a seed, in the study of botany a wheat berry is technically a simple fruit known as a caryopsis, which has the same structure as an apple. Just as an apple is a fleshy fruit that contains seeds, a grain is a dry fruit that absorbs water and contains a seed. The confusion comes from the fact that the fruit of a grass happens to have a form similar to some seeds.
Several proponents of the theory exist dating from the thirteenth century. In Nathan HaMe’ati's 13th century translation of Maimonides's work The Medical Aphorisms of Moses, the banana is called the "apple of eden". In the sixteenth century, Menahem Lonzano considered it common knowledge in Syria and Egypt that the banana was the apple of Eden..
