For centuries most readers in Western Europe met this story in Latin, and in Latin the name of the tree ends in mali, a form of the word for evil. Its dictionary form, malum, is spelled exactly like the Latin word for an apple, or for almost any fruit that grows on a tree. Genesis itself says only “fruit” and never names the kind. The apple came later. The pun is the usual explanation for it, a likely one that nobody can prove, and the only tree the Eden story names by its kind is the fig, for its leaves.
What Genesis names
In the woman’s words it is “the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden,” and when she eats, the text says she “took of the fruit thereof.” The two trees that get names are named by what they do: “the tree of life” and “the tree of knowledge of good and evil.” The King James uses the word apple about a dozen times, in Proverbs and the Song of Solomon and elsewhere, and never once in Genesis.
One kind of tree does appear. After they eat, “they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.” Whether the fig was the same tree, the chapter shows no interest in saying.
What God said
The story is about words before it is about fruit, and the first words belong to God.
And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
Genesis 2:16-17 (KJV)
God gives the permission first, and it is wide: every tree, freely. Then one tree is withheld, with a penalty stated as firmly as English allows. He says it to “the man,” and the woman is made a few verses later.
The words start to change
The serpent opens with a question: “Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” In the King James English, “not eat of every tree” can sound as if only some trees are off limits. The World English Bible words it as “You shall not eat of any tree of the garden,” which is a ban on all of them. However it is read, the generous half of what God said has dropped out.
Then the woman answers.
And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
Genesis 3:2-3 (KJV)
Set beside 2:16-17, the reply changes at least three things. “Freely” is gone. “Neither shall ye touch it” is new: God never said it, here or anywhere he speaks to them in these chapters. And “thou shalt surely die” has softened to “lest ye die.” Genesis does not say who first added the clause about touching, and anyone who says so is guessing.
Then the serpent puts the firm word back with a “not” in front of it: “Ye shall not surely die.” In four short speeches the ban has been widened, a clause added, the penalty softened and then canceled, and nobody has touched the tree.
What she wanted
Genesis gives her reasons in full: the tree was “good for food,” “pleasant to the eyes,” and “a tree to be desired to make one wise.” The third is the one the serpent had promised a moment before, “ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” What she wanted was more than a piece of fruit: she wanted what the serpent had promised.
Their eyes were opened, as the serpent said, and what they saw was that they were naked. First they sewed the aprons, and then, when they heard God walking in the garden, they hid among the trees.
And then we added a fruit
The chapter opens with God’s words being reworked, and the detail everybody argues about is one later readers supplied themselves, in another language, probably with help from two Latin words that look alike. Tradition supplied the apple. The habit that produced it is where the chapter it illustrates begins, and Mary Magdalene was given a trade the Gospels never accuse her of by the same habit.
The useful thing here is a small check. Before you say “God says,” make sure the sentence is his, and watch for the generous half, which in Eden was the half that went missing first.
In the garden the first word about the trees was permission, and the one tree withheld came second.