1 THAT FORBIDDEN apple in the Garden of Eden? The Book of Genesis does not explicitly say what fruit Eve persuaded Adam to share with her. The Hebrew Bible uses the generic term peri, which scholars have said could be used to describe a fig, a grape, a pomegranate, an apricot, or even wheat.
2 ANOTHER BIBLICAL apple reference is in Psalm 17, when David uses it while talking to God: “Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings.” Is David rather conceited, assuming he is God’s favourite? Not necessarily. The Bible’s use of “apple” here is thought to be a poetic way to refer to the eye’s pupil, which is also round.
3 APPLES HAVE long been associated with love—in Greek mythology, Paris hoped his golden apple would win him Helen of Troy. And it’s been said that in colonial New England, if a young woman peeled an apple in one strip, she’d toss it over her shoulder and see what letter it formed on the floor. This was the initial of her future husband.
This story is from the September 2021 edition of Reader's Digest UK.
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This story is from the September 2021 edition of Reader's Digest UK.
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