The Talmud lists three contradictory opinions about the identity of the unnamed fruit eaten by Adam and Eve in Garden of Eden: that it was a fig, a grape, or a kernel of wheat; Moses Naḥmanides, meanwhile, contends that it was a citron. But in the West, for centuries, it has been understood to be an apple. In Temptation Transformed, Azzan Yadin-Israel seeks to determine how this came to be so, debunking some widely held explanations in the process. Philip Getz writes in his review:

In 12th-century France, apples began showing up in Christian depictions of “the Fall of Man,” everywhere from the Cathedral of Notre Dame to illuminated Bibles and psalm books. These red and gold apples supplanted the previous identification of grapes and figs as the forbidden fruit with which the serpent tempted Eve and Eve tempted Adam.

Yadin-Israel is not the first to discuss this erroneous identification of the forbidden fruit with the apple. In 1646, Sir Thomas Browne published a book called Pseudodoxia Epidemica: or, Enquiries into Very Many Received Tenets and Commonly Presumed Truths, also known by the simpler title Vulgar Errors, which is what it cataloged. Book 7 concerned biblical misconceptions, first among them being that the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge was an apple. Browne suggested that some authorities had identified that as the forbidden fruit because in Latin the word malum means both “bad” and “apple.”

This neat explanation was taken up by modern scholars, including the distinguished 20th-century German Lutheran scholar Gerhard von Rad and, more recently, Ziony Zevit in a widely read book called What Really Happened in the Garden of Eden? Whatever did happen in the Garden of Eden, Yadin-Israel demonstrates that this linguistic misunderstanding never occurred, no matter how plausible it sounds. It turns out that the word malum so rarely appears in Latin translations of Genesis that this explanation is certainly false. In fact, the word was specifically avoided precisely because of its malevolent resonance.

In a momentous meeting with the Syrian president Ahmed al-Sharaa in Riyadh, President Trump announced that he is lifting sanctions on the beleaguered and war-torn country. On the one hand, Sharaa is an alumnus of Islamic State and al-Qaeda, who came to power as commander of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which itself began life as al-Qaeda’s Syrian offshoot; he also seems to enjoy the support of Qatar. On the other hand, he overthrew the Assad regime—a feat made possible by the battering Israel delivered to Hizballah—greatly improving Jerusalem’s strategic position, and ending one of the world’s most atrocious and brutal tyrannies. President Trump also announced that he hopes Syria will join the Abraham Accords.

This analysis by Eran Lerman was published a few days ago, and in some respects is already out of date, but more than anything else I’ve read it helps to make sense of Israel’s strategic position vis-à-vis Syria.

Israel’s primary security interest lies in defending against worst-case scenarios, particularly the potential collapse of the Syrian state or its transformation into an actively hostile force backed by a significant Turkish presence (considering that the Turkish military is the second largest in NATO) with all that this would imply. Hence the need to bolster the new buffer zone—not for territorial gain, but as a vital shield and guarantee against dangerous developments. Continued airstrikes aimed at diminishing the residual components of strategic military capabilities inherited from the Assad regime are essential.

At the same time, there is a need to create conditions that would enable those in Damascus who wish to reject the reduction of their once-proud country into a Turkish satrapy. Sharaa’s efforts to establish his legitimacy, including his visit to Paris and outreach to the U.S., other European nations, and key Gulf countries, may generate positive leverage in this regard. Israel’s role is to demonstrate through daily actions the severe costs of acceding to Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ambitions and accepting Turkish hegemony.

Israel should also assist those in Syria (and beyond: this may have an effect in Lebanon as well) who look to it as a strategic anchor in the region. The Druze in Syria—backed by their brethren in Israel—have openly expressed this expectation, breaking decades of loyalty to the central power in Damascus over their obligation to their kith and kin.