Why did the apple get Adam and Eve in trouble?

Answer 1

Eve ate it first, after being persuaded by the serpent, but some commentators believe Adam was present for their entire conversation without offering moral support. She then offered it to him, who appears to have accepted without a second thought. According to the traditional Western interpretation of Romans 5:12, it was Adam's act of eating it which caused all of his descendents to be born sinful; had Eve eaten it and Adam not, she would have been the only human to know sin.

Answer 2

Yes: In Genesis 1 we read that God said, "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds." This places the origin of all trees at the beginning of creation. The only way to accommodate the current existence of apple trees is that the kind of tree that bears an apple fruit with seed in it was created in the beginning.

Of course, the question is not "was there an apple tree", but "were there apple trees." Considering that Adam and Eve lived for many hundreds of years, it is almost certain that a singular apple tree would have had time to reproduce.

Answer 3

The notion of an apple came in with the translation of the story of Adam and Eve into Latin. The word 'malum' in Latin may be translated as 'apple' and 'evil'. The original translators would have translated either directly from Hebrew or from Hebrew by way of Greek. According to Greek and Latin mythologies, the apple was linked with discord and evil deeds. So the translators chose the specific word for 'apple' over the general word for 'fruit'.

Answer 4

The depiction of Adam and Eve eating the apple came from a linguistic convenience. The word for 'apple' in Latin is the masculine gender noun 'malus'. The word in Latin for 'evil' is the adjective 'malus' in the masculine, and 'mala' and 'malum' in the respective feminine and neuter forms.

Answer 5

Sex would be the primary interpretation, if not the one officially endorsed by the religious.

Answer 6

The apple got Adam and Eve in trouble because God told them not to eat it