(My writing assignment for school today was about symbolism. I was to write 11 sentences on a symbol and to explain it. I chose to center my writing assignment on something that "keeps the doctor away".)In the Bible, the writer of Genesis tells us about the beginning of the world and the beginning of time, the beginning of all things beautiful and the beginning of man. Genesis also tells us about the beginning of something that is slowly destroying all of those wonderful things: sin.
Sin entered the world when Satan, in the form of a serpent, lured Eve, the first woman, into thinking that if she ate the fruit of a particular tree, she would gain knowledge and understanding beyond belief and that she would be like God. Eve ignored the fact that God had specifically told her not to eat the fruit from that one tree, because the red fruit shone in front of her and her hunger for knowledge outweighed her love for God. Eve bit into the fruit and then offered a bite to her husband, Adam, the first man, and since that time, our hearts have been plagued with sin.
The fruit, thought to be an apple, is now a widely-recognized symbol for sin. In the hit TV show Desperate Housewives, the beginning of each episode features the drawing of a nude woman holding an apple. In the popular young adult series about love and vampires, the first book, Twilight, features a cover with a woman’s pale hands holding a bright red apple. A Veggie Tales episode about sin, greed, and materialism, stars an apple as the villain, who temps her victims into falling into her trap.
Of course, there is nothing wrong with an apple itself, but the story behind the antioxidants still lingers in today’s culture. Perhaps the apple will never lose its unfortunate fame.
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Commandment #8:
Thou shalt not steal.
Please do not steal, copy, or use my work. I’m trusting you with it. Thank you!
Nice post...I think you hit the nail on really the core of man's depravity, we hunger for things outside of God. Adam and Eve hungered for the forbidden fruit. Today, teens hunger for pleasure and lustful desires. Mankind hungers for everything and anything that goes against God - lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life (1 John 2:16).
ReplyDeleteThanks.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree.
I LOVE this post, but I must ask, how do you know that the fruit was red? That tree was taken up into heaven so no one except Adam and Eve saw it. For all we know it could be tye-dye. :)
ReplyDeleteMaddy,
ReplyDeleteThanks!
I was using the adjectives such as "red", "bright", and "gleaming" to give the sensation of hunger for that apple, to just give a peek at how good it looked and how hard it must have been for Adam and Eve.
The fruit may have been an apple, as commonly portrayed in story books, but I think thye decided it should be an apple because then children could relate to it. If it was some strange, bizarre fruit such as a pomegranate, a grapefruit, or a kiwi, some kids may not understand.
One hunch that I have is that it could have been a pomegranate, but I am not sure. You see, throughout history, other people have translated true Biblical happenings in different ways. There are countless retellings of Noah's flood, for example. In ancient Greece, Persephone was from the earth, but she was trapped in the underworld, and she ate the fruit of the dead, six pomegranate seeds. The meaning goes deeper than this but I don't feel like researching more.
Also, almost everyone has seen Snow White, right? Well, what killed her? A gleaming red apple.