Forbidden fruit

Forbidden fruit is a phrase that originates from Genesis concerning Adam and Eve in Genesis 2:16–17. In the narrative, Adam and Eve ate the fruit of good and evil in the Garden of Eden, which they had been commanded not to do by God. As a metaphor, the phrase typically refers to any indulgence or pleasure that is considered illegal or immoral.

The word fruit appears in Hebrew as פֶּ֫רִי (pərî). Potential forbidden fruits of the Garden of Eden include the apple, grape(Talmud), pomegranate, the fig, the carob, the etrog or citron, the pear, mushrooms, the quince and, more recently, the datura. The pseudepigraphic Book of Enoch describes the tree of knowledge: "It was like a species of the Tamarind tree, bearing fruit which resembled grapes extremely fine; and its fragrance extended to a considerable distance. I exclaimed, How beautiful is this tree, and how delightful is its appearance!" (1 Enoch 31:4).

One alternative view is that the forbidden fruit is not a fruit at all, but a metaphorical one, possibly the fruit of the womb, i.e. sex and procreation from the tree of life. For example, in his Autobiography of a Yogi, the Hindu spiritual teacher Paramhansa Yogananda cites an interpretation by his master Swami Sri Yuktiswar that the Garden of Eden refers to man's body, with the fruit in the center being that of the sexual organs

In Western Europe, the fruit was often depicted as an apple, possibly because of a misunderstanding of, or a pun on , a native Latin noun which means evil (from the adjective ), and mālum, another Latin noun, borrowed from Greek μῆλον, which means apple. In the Vulgate, Genesis 2:17 describes the tree as de ligno autem scientiae boni et mali: "but of the tree (lit. wood) of knowledge of good and evil" (mali here is the genitive of malum). The larynx, specifically the laryngeal prominence that joins the thyroid cartilage, in the human throat is noticeably more prominent in males and was consequently called an Adam's apple, from a notion that it was caused by the forbidden fruit sticking in Adam's throat as he swallowed.

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