Origins of the Forbidden Fruit Myth

Gone Medieval

History Hit

History

4.6 • 2.2K Ratings

🗓️ 2 June 2023

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

How did the apple become the dominant symbol of temptation and sin, when it isn’t even mentioned in the Bible story of Adam and Eve?

In this episode of Gone Medieval, Matt Lewis meets Professor Azzan Yadin-Israel who has pursued this mystery across art and religious history, uncovering where, when, and why the forbidden fruit became an apple. He reveals that Eden’s fruit, once thought to be a fig or a grape, first appears as an apple in 12th-century French art. But why?

Visit Professor Yadin-Israel's website database of the forbidden fruit in Western art:

http://treeofknowledgeart.com/

This episode was produced by Rob Weinberg.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Gone Medieval from History Hit.
0:02.6	To listen to all of our episodes, add free and watch hundreds of history documentaries
0:06.8	download the History Hit app or go to historyhit.com forward slash subscribe.
0:12.4	And if you're an Apple listener, you can subscribe for new add free episodes within the app.
0:23.1	Welcome to this episode of Gone Medieval, I'm Matt Lewis.
0:25.9	I'm delighted to be joined today to try and answer a question you might not ever have
0:30.0	actually asked.
0:31.0	I wasn't particularly aware of this debate though my youngest daughter tells me that she
0:34.4	was.
0:35.4	Now we all know the biblical story of the origins of humanity, Adam and Eve in the
0:40.0	Garden of Eden.
0:41.2	The snake tempting Eve to eat the apple that sees them driven out of paradise.
0:45.6	It's a pretty ubiquitous image, but there's something wrong in it, potentially a mistake
0:50.1	and today's guest is here to help pinpoint this into the medieval period.
0:54.8	Okay, so I'm keen of saying that everything is medieval, so I guess I have to allow that
0:58.4	mistakes and misunderstandings can be too.
1:01.2	My guest is Professor Azan Yadin Israel, who is Professor of Jewish Studies and Classics
1:07.0	at Rutgers University in New Jersey.
1:09.5	And Azan's book, Temptation Transformed, The Story of How the Forbidden Fruit Became
1:14.6	an Apple, probably gives away what we're going to be talking about.
1:18.0	Thank you very much for joining us on Gone Medieval, Azan.
1:20.5	Thank you for having me, man.
	...

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