Of course they did, it’s right there in scripture…isn’t it? Well actually, no. If you have a read though of Genesis 3 (which is where Satan enters into the garden to deceive Eve), nowhere in the Bible does God record that Adam and Eve actually ate an apple.
So what’s happened? Why has it become such a tradition to say that Adam and Eve ate of an apple from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?
A very likely answer has to do with the word evil and what it translates to in its original Latin. The word evil translates to Malum in Latin, and additionally, the word apple translates to Malum as well. I think we might be onto something here!
This leads us all the way back to the 4th century AD. The word Malum appeared in the Vulgate, which is a late fourth century version of the Bible translated mainly by St. Jerome. This word appeared in the section of this Bible that also featured the words ‘the tree of knowledge of good and evil’. From this point onwards, people started associating the apple with the fruit that Adam and Eve ate.
We can’t know for certain what fruit it was that Eve would have eaten of in the Garden of Eden, however we can be certain that the Bible itself does not indicate that it was an apple.
I guess to only way to find out will be to ask Eve when we eventually meet her in heaven!