The “Fruit” of Original Sin
Over the course of history, the Bible was translated into the language of each nation as Judaism and Christianity spread throughout the land. As translations are made, certain details are lost or misinterpreted. That is why I believe that the Forbidden Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge was not a fruit. In order for people to understand and grasp the origin story of sin, stories are simplified. That is why Adam and Eve took a bite of an “apple” from a “tree”. There are broad speculations as to what may have truly been the Forbidden Fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. While most believe it was a fig or some other edible food, I believe that Adam and Eve brought about Original Sin by taking a bite of the Forbidden Fruit of lustful sex.
Following Satan’s temptation in the Garden of Eden, both Adam and Eve severed their perfect relationship with God through creating Original Sin by taking a bite from the fruit of lustful sex, which deviated from God’s desire for them to have loving sex in order to be fruitful and multiply. God’s one rule for Adam and Eve was that they “must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die” (Genesis 2:17). In terms of the way this was translated over many centuries, this is where people were deviated from the true meaning. The hebrew word for “sex” is “yada”, which is also a word for “knowing” (Gresh). Therefore there is a strong possibility that God told Adam and Eve to not fall to the temptations of lustful sex. God wanted them to live in love and unity and to “be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:28). This implied the true wish for them to eat from the fruits of loving sex that God intended them to have instead of the fruits of lustful sex, that came from the Tree of “yada” or carnal knowledge (Pribble). In Paradise Lost, the Archangel Raphael spoke to Adam and gave him a discourse on sex (VII.579-594). Raphael acted as a messenger and protector from God and told him that sex was not about pleasure, but pure love. That was why God created humans to rule over animals. They had the ability to have that loving sex and cultivate reason by using their minds, which was the point of creation. Satan, the main character of Paradise Lost, fell from Heaven due to his desires of power and dominion, which were exercised by him when he gave into the temptation of lustful sex.
When Satan began his rebellion in Heaven, out of him spawned his daughter Sin. She was a result of his thoughts and plans of overthrowing God as well as a “parody of God’s creation of the Son” (Sims). Satan partook in the act of lustful sex with Sin, raping her and impregnating her with her son/brother Death. After Death was born, he raped his mother Sin while “Inflamm’d with lust” (II.791). Their children were dog-like creatures who continuously eat away at her ever changing body, cursed by fertility (Sims). When Satan convinced Eve to eat of “the fruit” of lustful, it was because he himself had already done so. He explained that he only spoke words to her because of the fruit, to which she replied “Shall that be shut to Man, which to the Beast is open?” (IX.691-692). Eve then ate of the fruit of lustful sex and had intercourse with Satan. She felt the power and newfound surge of emotion and rebellion rush through her body and wanted to show her new world to Adam. Once she tempted Adam they too had lustful sex, which solidified the Fall of Man and “that false Fruit Far other operation first display’d, Carnal desire inflaming, hee on Eve Began to cast lascivious Eyes, she him As wantonly repaid; in Lust they burn: Till Adam thus ‘gan Eve to dalliance move” (IX.1011-1015). To me, this proves that the Forbidden Fruit was not a fruit, but lustful sex. The word “dalliance” appears here on purpose because the way they had their lustful sex was the same way Satan described the lustful sex he had with his daughter, Sin (II.819). Once lust entered their lives, it dominated their lives and cursed them with a Hell on Earth. As the fires of Hell burn the sinners living there, Adam and Eve look at each other with “lascivious Eyes” and, by definition, offensive sexual desire, and live “in Lust they burn” (IX.1015).
Now, because I believe that Eve’s taking of the Forbidden Fruits from Satan was in the form of Lustful Sex, that means that she had his child, along with Adam’s when she successfully tempted him. The children born from Eve were Cain, Satan’s son, and Abel, Adam’s son. Although Genesis 4 said that those children were both from Adam, I believe that was a result of the misinterpretations of the true Forbidden Fruit. In their story, Cain kills Abel because of his jealousy of Adam’s praise toward Abel (Genesis). I link Cain’s sinful act of killing Abel to Satan’s sinful act of rebelling against God in order to kill him and take over the glorified position. Cain lived with the desires, jealousy, and evil that Satan has. Once God discovered Abel was murdered, he cursed Cain and his descendants for generations (Genesis 4:15-16). Once Adam and Eve were cast out from the Garden of Eden, they realized the error of their ways and refuted Lust and had loving sex again, resulting in their third son Seth. From Seth would be born a family tree that produced the most Holy figures of Christianity, and eventually Jesus Christ. The children that resulted from lustful sex were subject to Sin and Death, the same things that were the names of Satan’s children that came from lustful sex as well. The reversal in Adam and Eve’s lives once they rejected lustful sex helped them live as God intended for them. But before this and their repulsion from the Garden, Lust infected them like a disease.
Since Lust infected them in this way, sex overtook their lives. Before they gave in to the temptation of Lust, Adam and Eve lived harmoniously with God and each other. The sex they had with one another was “Founded in Reason, Loyal, Just, and Pure” (IV.755) thanks to their understanding of God’s presence and love. However, the Forbidden Fruit of lustful sex destroyed their raw emotions of positivity, it created the “loveless, joyless, unindear’d, Casual fruition” (IV.766-767) that Milton described them to not have. I believe Milton showed a heavy foreshadow of the Fall in regards to Adam and Eve resorting to Lust. For instance, when he wrote those words, dictated to him by an Angel, he capitalized “Reason”, “Loyal”, “Just”, and “Pure” (IV.755), which showed the reverence and honor that came with those words. Later on in that same instance, he neglected to capitalize “loveless”, “joyless”, and “unindear’d”, descriptive words for lustful sex and how it was looked down upon, but he did capitalize “Casual” (IV.766-767) which highlights the main difference of loving sex and lustful sex.
Milton’s foreshadowing of their change after the Fall proved to be right. They felt no sorrow or regret for their actions. Adam, after indulging in the Forbidden Fruit, said “Much pleasure we have lost, while we abstain’d From this delightful Fruit, nor known till now True relish, tasting” (IX.1022-1024). Adam said that he abstained from the Fruit, he directly referenced lustful sex. Abstinence, as medically defined by the Webster Dictionary, is “the practice of abstaining especially from engagement in sexual intercourse or consumption of intoxicating beverages” (Webster). Adam and Eve avoided the temptations of engaging in lustful sex, which Adam described as “this delightful Fruit” (IX.1023), and they lived in happiness. But in the same way intoxicating beverages can ruin a person’s life, they felt euphoric in that moment of consumption. After this scene of their lustful sex, Adam and Eve did not give thanks to God like they did when they praised the sacred nature of the physical and emotional union (IV.755). Instead negative emotions of “Anger, Hate, Mistrust, Suspicion, Discord” took complete control of them and “shook sore Thir inward State of Mind” (IX.1123-1125). This was what Satan wanted God’s creation to suffer from, just as he did after plunging through Chaos and into Hell. The juices of the Forbidden Fruit flowed through their conscience and infected their perfection and unity with God.
Adam and Eve experienced similar feelings that Death did when he raped his mother Sin. Sin described her rape and Death’s motives as she said she “fled, but he pursu’d (though more, it seems, Inflam’d with lust than rage)” (II.790-791). Adam and Eve were both inflamed with lust and carnal desire, and blinded from God’s presence and love. Once they realized this, they wanted to hide from God and cover themselves of their disobedience.