apple in Eden

[David]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., "Amy Z" <aiz24 at h...> wrote:

> Now wildly curious about how this apple business got started,

I asked my father, and got back the e-mail below.  Note it has our 
family quality of talking elegantly and knowledgeably around the 
problem, without actually coming up with the answer - that's an 
Oxford eductaion for you.

David of the Potterbations

> I don't know the answer; I'm sure it has been much discussed but I
haven't so far been able to track down anything conclusive.  The 
Anglo-Saxons were already referring to the forbidden fruit as an 
apple over 1000 years ago, but I doubt whether they were the first to 
do so.  There's a double problem: (i) what word was used in any given 
language to refer to the fruit? and (ii) precisely what fruit(s) did 
that word otherwise refer to? 

The Old English word from which 'apple' derives was applied to the 
species we are familiar with, but (usually with some qualification) 
it could be applied to other fruit (e.g. 'bramble-apple': compare 
later 'oak-apple' and 'pineapple'), so it was both specific and 
(metaphorically) general. 

A further complication is that English usage with regard to the 
forbidden fruit is likely to have been influenced by Latin, but I'm 
not familiar with the Latin tradition in this matter:  I would guess 
that the fruit was not referred to as 'malum' (the Classical Latin 
word that is  still used in botanical Latin), but it may perhaps have 
been called 'pomum', which in Classical Latin meant a fruit of any 
kind, though it came to be restricted to 'apple' in some parts of the 
Latin-speaking world (hence modern French 'pomme', as compared with 
Italian 'pomodoro': 'golden > fruit' = 'tomato').  

I don't know whether applying a word meaning 'apple' to the forbidden 
fruit is widespread in Europe or whether it is restricted to 
countries (mainly northern?) in which the apple is generally thought
of as the commonest or most representative fruit.  There are 
obviously some interesting questions here: I'll be pleased to hear 
whether you get any answers in your web-discussion.  My contribution 
(if you wish to pass it on) may muddy the waters a bit.