Sunshine in Paradise

The sun is shining today. It's really beautiful here too! The weather is pretty much perfect and the view is breathtaking!

But I don't think that I'm actually in Paradise. I haven't seen any snakes since I got here. On the other hand, Jaclyn did give me an apple.

Which brings me to a common misconception that I'd like to address. In the book of Genesis in the Bible, it describes an event. You remember - it's when Eve ate the apple and gave it to Adam and they got kicked out of the garden. Here's the passage for reference:

Genesis 3:1-6 (NASB)

1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, "Indeed, has God said, 'You shall not eat from any tree of the garden'?"
2 The woman said to the serpent, "From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat;
3 but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, 'You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.'"
4 The serpent said to the woman, "You surely will not die!
5 "For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."
6 When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.

See? She ate the apple and ... Wait. That doesn't say anything about an apple at all! In fact, there aren't any particular fruits indicted in this passage! So why apples?

Well, many of you may already know the answer, but for those who don't, we're going to the Latin!

Apple in Latin: malum
Evil in Latin: malum

Interesting! So the word for apple and the word for evil are the same in Latin! You see, a really long time ago, the Roman Catholic Church basically had a monopoly on the Christian religion. And what language do you suppose the Romans spoke? Latin. So when people talked about evil - as in the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and ... - they used the word malum. And as a joke (or a pun I suppose) they began associating apples with evil and the myth was born that Eve ate an apple.

But that's not all. Apples didn't originally carry the same meaning they carry now. There hasn't always been the specification we get now. For instance pears used to be apples. So did bananas!

That's why some of the old paintings from the good ol' days (The Rennaisance) have pears on the Tree! Go look at the Sistine Chapel!

That's it. See ya.