Who Said It Was an Apple?

The Hebrew word tap·puʹach, commonly translated “apple,” appears a number of times in the Bible. But it is not used in describing “the tree of the knowledge of good and bad.” (Genesis 2:9, 17; 3:6) Where, then, did the tradition that the apple was the forbidden fruit come from?

According to Plants of the Bible, by H. N. Moldenke, this idea was “due, no doubt, to the influence of Medieval and Renaissance artists who so depicted it.” For example, about the famous painting The Garden of Paradise by Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), now in the Hague Gallery, Moldenke observed: “The fruit on the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, with the serpent coiling among its branches, seems definitely to be apples. This painting is probably one of those to which we owe the presently widely held misconception that the apple is a Bible plant.”

Regarding the painting Adam and Eve (see above) by the German court painter Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1553), in which the apple is depicted, Moldenke commented that the Renaissance painters “loved retaining their right to rely on their imagination when they chose.” Other artists of the time, such as Tintoretto and Titian, did the same in their paintings on the same theme.

Probably among the first to put the idea down in writing, however, was the famous English poet John Milton. In his Paradise Lost (1667), Milton wrote of the temptation of Eve by the serpent:

“On a day, roving the field, I climbed

A goodly tree far distant to behold,

Loaden with fruit of fairest colours mixed,

Ruddy and gold. . . .

To satisfy the sharp desire I had

Of tasting those fair Apples, I resolved

Not to defer; hunger and thirst at once—

Powerful persuaders​—quickened at the scent

Of that alluring fruit, urged me so keen.”

Thus, not from God’s Word, the Bible, but from the fanciful, yet misguided, imagination of artists and poets has come one of the most popular myths of Christendom. What was the fruit? The Bible simply does not say, for the vital point is not the fruit but man’s disobedience.​—Romans 5:12.