Let’s look at Western Christianity and the beginning in the Garden of Eden. While the kind of fruit that led to the fall of man isn’t specified in the Bible, we all think of the apple when it comes to this story. Why? Well, the Renaissance paintings of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden are well known. We’ve all seen them. The naive little Eve has a forbidden fruit in her hand. That fruit is always depicted as an apple. Now, why did they choose the apple? Why is it not a persimmon, or a pear, or some alien fruit we’ve never seen in reality? There are a few possible reasons.

One reason may be due to a simple mistranslation. Ancient Greek had a word, mēlon, that simply meant tree fruit. Latin, however, is a funny language. . dead funny. Haha, get it? Anyhow, Latin took the Greek word melon and turned it into mālum, meaning apple. Coincidentally, the Latin word for evil is mălum. Commonly spelled, without all of the fancy swooshes they are both spelled malum. In Genesis this special tree in the Garden of Eden is called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The Latin translation of "good and evil" is bonum et malum. Ya know, good and evil or good and apple. . . either way, depends who's reading it. 

Illiteracy in the Renaissance time period is another reason Christianity used the apple as a symbol for sin. Follow me. Artists in the Renaissance used symbols to convey meaning and teach stories through their paintings. They did this because most of the people at that time were illiterate. In the Bible, after eating the forbidden fruit, Adam and Eve become aware of their nudity and sexuality. This was forbidden knowledge. Renaissance painters, as well as their audience, were familiar with the Greek myths. The Ancient Greeks used the apple as a symbol of forbidden pleasures, sexual desires, and lust. In Greek mythology the apple is associated with Aphrodite. She did start the Trojan war to get a golden apple after all.