

To discover the true name of the fruit, the references given above must be read carefully. It will be seen that the fruit was sweet, attractive, had a pleasing fragrance, was gold in color, had silvery leaves (or possibly this should read “silvery flower petals”), while its juice had rejuvenating properties. The tree which bore this fruit was tall and large enough to give plenty of good shade.

It is difficult to understand, therefore, why so many past writers, including [[John Milton]], have identified the fruit as an apple. Apples are not indigenous to Pal., and the description given does not fit the rather small acid apples that were grown in other parts in those days.

It could have been an orange (Citrus sinensis), but again this is not indigenous though it grew in Biblical days in India and China, for in Proverbs 25:11 the description is “apples of gold in a setting of silver,” and the orange does produce fruits and flowers simultaneously, and so the gold in silver is seen.

It