Was it an Apple?

A Simple Mistranslation?

In Christian tradition, the “forbidden fruit” is generally thought to be an apple thanks to a mistranslation into Latin by St. Jerome in 382 C.E. This is partly due to apples being a popular European fruit, but also that רע, or “bad” in Hebrew, was translated as malum that means “apple” in Latin. 

So What Fruit Was It? 

Jewish sources offer several answers: a nut, citron, grape, wheat, and fig. This is because all of these products are prominent Middle Eastern foods; apple had not yet been introduced into the Levant. The most accepted Jewish interpretation is that it was a fig, or te’enah (תאנה) in Hebrew due to it being the first tree that appears in Genesis. Moreover, the text recounts that when Adam and Eve realized they were naked, “they sewed fig-leaves together, and made themselves girdles” (Genesis 3:7).  

Rediscover the Famous Stories of the Bible

This story, among others, gains a whole new meaning once you read them in a Jewish context. If you want to really grasp the meaning of the words of Scripture, you must set aside all these translations and get back to the original Hebrew Bible. We invite you to enroll in our Discovering the Hebrew Bible course and reveal your favorite Bible stories through a Hebrew lens.