Forbidden fruit

In Abrahamic religions, forbidden fruit is a name given to the fruit growing in the Garden of Eden that God commands mankind not to eat. In the biblical story, 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 story

The story 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 knowledge, 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. When confronted, Adam tells God that Eve gave him the fruit to eat, and Eve tells God that the serpent deceived her into eating it. God then curses the serpent, the woman, and the man, and expels the man and woman from the Garden before they eat of the tree of eternal life.

Quranic story

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 (; 'wrongdoers').

Surah Al-A'raf 7:20–22 describes (), who whispers to Adam and his wife and deceives them. When they tasted of the tree, their nakedness was exposed to them, prompting them to cover themselves with leaves from Paradise.

Gnostic story

A Gnostic interpretation of the story proposes that it was the archons who created Adam and attempted to prevent him from eating the forbidden fruit in order to keep him in a state of ignorance, after the spiritual form of Eve entered the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil while leaving a physical version of herself with Adam once she awakened him. However, the forces of the heavenly realm (Pleroma) sent the serpent as a representative of the divine sphere to reveal to Adam and Eve the evil intentions of their creators. The serpent succeeded in convincing them to eat the fruit and become like gods, capable of distinguishing between good and evil.

Identifications and depictions

The word ''fruit'' appears in Hebrew as . As to which fruit may have been the forbidden fruit of the Garden of Eden, possibilities include an apple, grapes, a pomegranate, a fig, carob, etrog or citron, pear, quince, wheat, banana, coco de mer, and mushrooms. The pseudepigraphic Book 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!" (1 Enoch 31:4).

In Islamic tradition, the fruit is commonly either identified with wheat or with grapevine.

Apple

In Western Europe, the fruit is often depicted as an apple. This is frequently explained as resulting from a misunderstanding of – or a pun on – two unrelated words , a native Latin noun which means 'evil' (from the adjective ), and , another Latin noun, borrowed from Greek , which means 'apple'. In the Vulgate, Genesis 2:17 describes the tree as : "but of the tree iterally 'wood'of knowledge of good and evil" ( here is the genitive of ). However, Yadin-Israel argues that Latin Christian writers from Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages rarely used to refer to the forbidden fruit.

Azzan Yadin-Israel argues that the identification of the forbidden fruit with an apple first appears in medieval French art of the 12th century. According to Yadin-Israel, Latin authors frequently referred to the forbidden fruit as , a Latin word meaning "fruit". From this term derived the Old French

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