TL;DR
- Fruit in the Eden story is the plain noun פְּרִי peri—just “produce,” nothing botanical.
- Knowledge is דַּעַת daʿat, from the root ידע y-d-ʿ “to know,” connoting intimate, experiential knowing.
- The phrase עֵץ הַדַּעַת טוֹב וָרָע (“tree of the knowledge of good & evil”) occurs only in Gen 2:9, 17.
- Septuagint renders daʿat with γνῶσις / γινώσκειν, Latin Vulgate with scientia, birthing the apple-evil malum pun.
- Daʿat becomes a quasi-sefirah in Kabbalah and a watchword of Gnostic Christianity, embedding the root across mystical literatures.
Companion article: For a deep etymology dive tracing Daʿat back to Proto-Afroasiatic, see Rooting Daʿat.
1. The Hebrew Lexemes
1.1 Peri (פְּרִי) — The Generic “Fruit”#
Peri is a masculine noun built on the verb פָּרָה parah “to bear fruit, increase.”
Genesis 3:2 simply says mip‑peri ʿetz‑ha‑gan “from the fruit of the garden tree we eat,” giving zero hint of species.
The text’s studied vagueness let later commentators imagine figs, grapes, wheat—even etrog—without contradicting scripture.
1.2 Daʿat (דַּעַת) — Experiential Knowledge#
Derived from the root ידע yadaʿ, daʿat denotes felt, relational knowing, not cold data.
Its verbal parent already carries sexual nuance: “Adam knew (yadaʿ) Eve” in Gen 4:1.
| Lexeme | Root | Core Sense | Typical Contexts |
|---|---|---|---|
| yadaʿ (verb) | ידע | to know, perceive | covenant loyalty, sexual union |
| daʿat (noun) | ידע | knowledge, consciousness | Proverbs’ wisdom triad (חָכְמָה–בִּינָה–דַּעַת), prophetic oracles |
Across the Tanakh daʿat appears ≈ 90 ×, clustering in Proverbs (“The fear of YHWH is the beginning of knowledge,” 1:7) and wisdom psalms.
2. Translation Trajectory
2.1 Greek: gnōsis & gignōskein#
The Septuagint renders the phrase as ξύλου τοῦ γινώσκειν καλὸν καὶ πονηρόν—literally “tree‑of‑the‑to‑know good and evil.”
Gnōsis later becomes the banner term of second‑century Gnostic sects, who re‑mythologise Eden as a jailbreak into saving insight.
2.2 Latin: Scientia and the Apple Pun#
Jerome’s Vulgate keeps the semantic line with lignum scientiae boni et mali.
Medieval artists, however, paint apples because Latin mălum (“apple”) homographs with mălum (“evil”)—a philological joke that stuck.
3. Afterlives of Daʿat#
- Rabbinic speculation: candidates for the fruit mirror Israel’s agricultural calendar—fig (ready leaves), grape (wine’s woe), wheat (child learns to say “abba”).
- Kabbalah: Daʿat slides in as the hidden 11th sefirah, the conscious bridge fusing ḥokhmah (wisdom) & binah (understanding).
- Christian mysticism: Greek gnōsis morphs into a quest for direct vision of God, now filtered through Platonic epistemology.
FAQ#
Q 1. Does the Hebrew text name an apple?
A. No. It says only peri—“fruit.” The apple surfaces a millennium later via a Latin pun.
Q 2. Is daʿat just intellectual knowledge?
A. Hardly. The root yadaʿ covers covenant loyalty and sexual intimacy, so daʿat implies embodied, relational awareness.
Q 3. How many times does daʿat appear in the Hebrew Bible?
A. Roughly ninety, with dense usage in Proverbs and prophetic critiques like Hosea 4:6 (“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge”).
Q 4. Why do Kabbalists count Daʿat as a sefirah?
A. In Lurianic diagrams it functions as the inner light of Keter made communicable—hence sometimes listed, sometimes hidden.
Footnotes#
Sources#
- Hebrew Word Lessons. “Revisiting Daʿat/Yada (Knowledge).” 2021.
- Strong, James. Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance, entries 3045 (ידע) & 6529 (פְּרִי).
- BibleHub. Genesis 2:9 & 3:2 Hebrew Text Analyses.
- Blue Letter Bible. Septuagint Gen 2:17.
- BibleGateway. Vulgate Gen 2:17.
- Rutgers University News. “How the Forbidden Fruit Became an Apple.” 2023.
- GalEinai. “Daʿat.” Kabbalah primer.
- Wikipedia. “Gnosis.” 2025-07 update.
- Wikipedia. “Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.” 2025-07 update.