Why the Apple Falls Far From the Tree of Knowledge

How did the apple, unmentioned by the Bible, become the dominant symbol of temptation, 罪, 和堕落? 在这次演讲中, Azzan Yadin-Israel will pursue this mystery across art and religious history, uncovering where, 当, why the forbidden fruit became an apple. We will see that the forbidden fruit, once thought to be a fig or a grape, first appears as an apple in twelfth-century French art, a development rooted in changes to the French of the time. So, while scholars have sought religious or theological explanations for the appearance of the apple, 事实上, the change was driven by non-religious, vernacular developments. Through analysis of early Christian thought, Renaissance art, medieval languages, we arrive at an eye-opening revisionist history of this important religious icon.

传记

Professor Yadin-Israel earned his B.A. from the Hebrew University and his Ph.D. from the University of California, 加州大学伯克利分校, is a professor of Jewish Studies and Classics at Rutgers University. He has published dozens of articles, several books, including Scripture as Logos: Rabbi Ishmael and the Origins of Midrash, Scripture and Tradition: Rabbi Akiva and the Triumph of Midrash, The Grace of God and the Grace of Man: The Theologies of Bruce Springsteen.

Assigned Reading

Azzan Yadin-Israel, Temptation Transformed: The Story of How the Forbidden Fruit Became an Apple (The University of Chicago Press, 2022)