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5 Minutes in Church History with Stephen Nichols

The Apple and the Whale

5 Minutes in Church History with Stephen Nichols

Ligonier Ministries

Christianity, History, Religion & Spirituality

4.81.7K Ratings

🗓️ 17 May 2023

⏱️ 5 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Church history is filled with biblical imagery. Today, Dr. Stephen Nichols considers the differences in how artists through the centuries have depicted the fruit that Adam and Eve ate in the garden of Eden and the fish that swallowed Jonah.

Read the transcript: https://www.5minutesinchurchhistory.com/the-apple-and-the-whale/

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Transcript

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0:00.0

Welcome back to another episode of Five Minutes in Church History.

0:10.2

On this episode, we will be talking about the journey that two biblical objects took through

0:18.0

church history, the apple and the whale.

0:22.8

If you go back to Genesis 2, you're introduced to the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

0:31.3

And in Genesis 3, we're introduced to the notion of the fruit of the tree, of the knowledge

0:37.8

of good and evil.

0:40.1

Well, what was that fruit?

0:43.0

Today, it's most commonly considered an apple.

0:47.4

That protrusion in the front of the neck is a piece of cartilage that protects the larynx.

0:55.5

We call it Adam's apple, don't we?

0:59.2

Doctors call it the laryngeal prominence, but alas, it's part of that apple stuck in our

1:06.0

throat from Adam.

1:08.2

We see apples all over in literature as the fruit, the identity of the fruit, the forbidden

1:16.6

fruit that Eve and Adam partook.

1:20.3

Well, if we go back to the original words, whether it's the Hebrew, the Greek, or the Latin,

1:25.7

what we find is that term is simply the generic term for fruit.

1:31.2

The ancient commentators would speak of it as an orchard fruit.

1:36.0

Contenders in the early church were the grape, the fig, and the pomegranate.

1:42.6

The fig, of course, because Adam and Eve make for themselves close of fig leaves.

1:48.4

So if there are fig leaves, perhaps it was a fig tree, and it's figs that are most commonly

1:55.9

depicted in early Christian art, in the frescoes in the Roman catacombs, depicting the fall

2:01.7

of Adam and Eve in the garden.

...

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