The phrase forbidden fruit has come to mean “something desirable but off limits.” The idea of forbidden fruit originated with the biblical account of the first man and woman, Adam and Eve, committing the first sin on earth. Genesis 3 gives the details of mankind’s first temptation. Satan, in the form of a serpent, convinced Eve that she had misunderstood God’s clearly stated command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 3:4–5).

1. What does the forbidden fruit in the
Bible really mean?
The phrase forbidden fruit has come to mean “something desirable but
off limits.” The idea of forbidden fruit originated with the biblical
account of the first man and woman, Adam and Eve, committing the
first sin on earth. Genesis 3 gives the details of mankind’s first
temptation. Satan, in the form of a serpent, convinced Eve that she
had misunderstood God’s clearly stated command not to eat of the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 3:4–5).
Satan first challenged her understanding of God’s words, then
suggested that she should make her own decision based on her
personal assessment that the forbidden fruit was “good,” “pleasing,”
and “desirable” (verse 6). So, being deceived and acting contrary to
God’s command (Genesis 2:16–17), Eve took the fruit and ate it. She
gave the fruit to Adam, who ate some, too. At that moment, sin, death,
and destruction entered into the world (Romans 5:12).
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2. For centuries, people have wondered about the identity of this
enticing fruit that caused so much trouble. The Hebrew word for
“fruit” in this passage is peri, which is a generic term used for
“produce,” “results,” or “reward.” Nowhere is the identity of the
forbidden fruit given in Scripture. Some speculate that the idea of its
being an apple may have begun when the Bible was translated into
Latin. The Latin word for “apple” is mālum, which is very similar to
another Latin word, mălum, which means “evil.” When the Latin
Vulgate came into being, the similarity in words could have spawned
the idea that apples represent evil.
Legend and art have also added to the common assumption that the
forbidden fruit was an apple. We idiomatically refer to the larynx as
the Adam’s apple, a term that originated from a folk tale wherein the
bulge in a person’s neck was caused by the apple sticking in Adam’s
throat. (Helping the legend along is the fact that the cartilaginous
protrusion is more pronounced in men than in women.) Renaissance
painters helped affix the identification of the forbidden fruit as an
apple through their depictions of biblical stories mixed with
mythology. Folklore tends to create a life of its own when people
repeat as truth what began as suggestion.
What’s likely is that the fruit mentioned in Genesis 3 is no longer
available on the earth. Even though the fruit itself was not evil—only
the disobedience was—(Genesis 2:9; 3:24; Revelation 22:2).
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