Of Apples and Oranges by Pepper
Was the sacred fruit in the Garden of Eden an apple or an orange? While according to historical and geographic evidence, it was most likely a banana or pomegranate, from the point of view taken by biblical literalists the question is still up in the air. The bible typically leaves the species of fruit out, though popular design has designated the sacred vegetation to be an apple. But could the popular mind be wrong?
In favor of the orange as God?s citrus confection, the fruit held the wisdom of good and evil, something even Adam and Eve did not know of. ?You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; buy you must not east from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it, you will surely die.? Declared God. However, as the story continues, it is shown that this ?death? could be not a physical one but merely a death of innocence. Is the great El telling us that if we eat of oranges we shall no longer be innocent? It may be so! The abuse of oranges is as old as mankind itself. The serpent used the holy goodness of the oranges for its own purposes in the corruption of humans and the introduction of sin. It was not the Orange itself that brought sin into the world but the fact that Adam and Eve disobeyed God.
If this isn?t enough to back up, citrus fruits could grow in the Fertile Crescent where the Garden of Eden is suspected to have resided, according to biblio-archeologists and biblio-historians. While the arid conditions of modern Iraq could probably not sustain orange trees, an area of many rivers as the land of Eden was described to be surrounded by, could very well support a citrus population. Perhaps we will never know what type of fruit was the chosen carrier of God?s wisdom. But perhaps those who protect the oranges can rebel against pop culture icons and envision a world where cruelty to oranges is the ultimate loss of innocence and this noble fruit holds all the knowledge of good and evil.