The forbidden fruit that Adam and Eve partook of is always portrayed as being an apple. Is this an accurate representation? How did this idea come into being? Like a lot of our “traditional” ideas, let’s go back to the pagan source it came from. In Greek mythology it is known that the apple represented knowledge. It was associated with the goddess of wisdom, Athena. Certain ancient statues of Athena even show her holding an apple. So I guess we should look a bit deeper to see what the forbidden fruit really was. First we see that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was located in the middle of the garden (Gen 3:3). The Hebrew word here as middle is tavek, which can mean within, or within the boundaries of, middle, or midst.

After eating of the forbidden fruit, the scriptures say they “hastily” sewed fig leaves together to cover their nakedness. It would seem logical they picked the closest thing to them to cover themselves with, the fig leaves from the fig tree they had just eaten of! It does not seem likely they went running around the garden in haste specifically looking for a fig tree because of its shape of leaf. There must have been loads of tree leaves to pick from, including even larger ones I’m sure. So we may logically assume from this that the fruit was indeed a fig that was the forbidden fruit. The Torah Anthology confirms this idea.

It states, When Adam and Eve ate the fruit, they realized they were naked. Since the fruit they had eaten was a fig, they made loin cloths out of fig leaves, in response to their disobedience. Out of YHVH’S “mercy” he never let them eat of the Tree of Life afterwards, or they would have stayed in their sinful condition for eternity. We know this area of Jerusalem was known to produce fig trees. In particular, the New Testament refers to a city called Bethphage (house of unripe figs) that was located on the Mount of Olives. Remember when Yeshua entered the city of Jerusalem, he singled out a particular fig tree and cursed it. Could he have also been speaking symbolically when he declared that no one would ever eat of its fruit again, because it was a fig tree that was used to bring sin into the world? Also I believe he may have singled this particular tree out because it was located in the same place as the one Adam and Eve ate from. So not only did Adam and Eve eat of the fig tree, but in so doing ate us out of our house and home, “literally.”