"But
the
Lord God called to the man, 'Where are you?' He
answered, 'I
heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was
naked; so I hid.'
And God said, 'Who told you that you were naked? Have
you eaten from
the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?' The
man said, 'The
woman that you put here with me - she gave me some fruit
from the tree
and I ate it.'
Then
the
lord God said to the woman, 'What is this that you have
done?'
The woman said, 'The serpent deceived me, and I ate.'"
(Genesis 3,
verses 9 through 13.)
Most of us may not know the exact words of the Bible regarding this passage, but we all know about Adam and Eve, and the eating of the forbidden fruit in the garden of Eden. The eating of which caused the fall of man by opening his eyes and being able for the first time to understand the concept of good and evil, Man and woman were both forced out of the lush paradise and into the cold, cruel world, to taste of everything from hardcore labor, to death.
But
why
an apple? Does it say anywhere in the ancient
scriptures about Adam
and Eve eating an apple? The answer is NO. So
again, why an
apple? Is it because it is a common fruit?
Perhaps the most
universally understood image of fruit? I'd like to
take a stab at
an answer here.
Let
me
know what you think. This sounds strange, but when I
am feeling
down and out, I'll go eat an apple, and suddenly I seem to
see things in
a different way. There must be some chemical or other
element inside
of apples that at least makes me think things are
different. Maybe
that is a common thing for people to experience; the opening
of ones eyes
by the consumption of an apple; hence, the apple being the
fruit of The
Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. (That's what
the name of
the tree was.)
But let us dig a little deeper, In fact, let us dig way, way deeper to a book that was written long, long ago. Thirty thousand years ago, according to some scholars. The name of this book is "The Book of Enoch." This book according to some, is one of the lost books of the Bible; a book that somehow escaped the canonization of the 66 books that we now call the Bible. A book that predates the oldest book in the Bible, "Job" by some twenty seven thousand years.
Enoch
was
the only person to ever escape death. God loved him so
much that
he refused to let him go through the painful experience of
death.
At the end of a 300 year life, "Enoch was not, for God took
him."
A bit of a "beam me up Scotty" type of scenario. At
any rate, in
the book of Enoch, it is revealed that the The Tree of the
Knowledge of
Good and Evil is also known as the Tree of Life. At
least they have
the same appearance. To eat of the fruit of The Tree
of Life, is
to live forever. This tree is described as a medium
sized deciduous
tree, having fruit in the shape of "giant grapes" growing in
clusters just
like grapes grow, only much bigger. So there you have
it. The
apple was actually a giant grape. UPDATE: I have
recently discovered that some have offered up the Asian
fruit known as the Lychee as a possible candidate for at
least the description of the forbidden fruit from the Book
of Enoch.
Letters
Regarding this subject:
Frank Writes: The explanation I had heard was that the
forbidden
fruit was not mentioned until an artist needed to paint the
scene. Since
you can't paint a nondescript fruit, he choose an apple.
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