Banana @ Eden(PART 1 OF 3)
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Kato, did you dream of eating a banana in the Garden of Eden last night?
No, I didn't.
Then how come you pasted the above picture? You and Eve seems to have found a lot of bananas in such a romantic dream.
Diane, have you ever heard of a true story in which Adam and Eve ate a banana instead of an apple?
No kidding!
I'm not joking nor jesting. I'm dead serious!
Kato, are you out of your mind? All the Christians have been believing for centuries that Adam and Eve ate an apple in the Garden of Eden. If you say this nonsense, you're gonna be a laughingstock on the Net.
I know, I know..., but what I'm saying is true.
You must be out of your mind, Kato. Why don't you wake up and wash your face again in the ice-cold water?
So, Diane, you don't believe me, do you?
Nobody believe you, Kato. What the heck makes you think so?
Actually, I borrowed a translated version of the best-seller called "Banana."
I see ... so you've simply gone bananas after reading it, haven't you?
Well ... Diane, at least, you've got a good sense of humor ...
Kato, do you really believe such a foolish story?
No, this isn't a foolish story. Look at the following catalogue page.
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■“Actual Library catalogue”
I see... so, Kato, you've read the Japanese version, haven't you?
Yes, I have. The above book is one of the best non-fiction books I've ever read in my life.
Do you really mean it, Kato?
Yes, of course, I do. Why don't you borrow and read it once the library acquires it.
Kato, have you already reserved it?
Oh, yes, I have. By the way, Diane, do you know who told the world in the first place that Adam and Eve ate an apple in the Garden of Eden?
... beats the hell out of me, but it is common sense, isn't it?
The book says, the first person said that is Saint Jerome.
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This man was born in Dalmatia in 340 AD. Parents were Christians, but he wasn't interested in Christianity himself. He went to Rome simply because he wanted to study philosophy and rhetoric.
Then why did he get involved in the Bible?
Good question! ... While he studied Greek and devoted himself to the study of classics in Anatolia and Gaul, he got seriously ill around 373, in Antioch. This illness made him devote his life to the study of theology. Then he learned Hebrew while living in the desert of Syria, and decided to immerse himself in a project to translate the old Bible into Latin. The book also tells the following story.
The Pope ordered Jerome to translate the Bible, and he just did it in Rome.
After this translation, the Bible came to be read by more people.
During the following six centuries, the Bible began to be translated in other languages.
Then, in 1455, Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing machine, which made it possible that the Bible came to be printed in large quantities for the first time.
The Gutenberg Bible was an exact copy of the faithful Latin translation made by Jerome a thousand years ago.
As in English, Latin is a language in which there are homonyms that share the same pronunciation but have different meanings.
When Jerome translated the Hebrew word "fruit of knowledge of good and evil" into Latin, he picked “malum” for it.
According to the biblical archaeologist Shuneia Levin, its meaning is close to "malicious."
“Malum” can also be translated as "apple" since it is a word derived from the Greek word "melon" that originally maens "apple."
The Renaissance painters who read the Gutenberg Bible interpreted the word to refer to apple, and began to draw an apple, instead of a banana, in a picture of the Garden of Eden.
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"Adam and Eve" by Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1526.
He should've put bananas, instead of apples.
(translated by Kato)
SOURCE: ２３-２５ページ 『バナナの世界史』
著者： ダン・コッペル 訳者： 黒川由美
２０１２年６月３日 第１版第２刷発行
発行所： 株式会社 太田出版
"Banana" by Dan Koeppel
But I'm still in doubt.
I can understand your doubt. Let me ask you this question.
What is it?
Where is the Garden of Eden?
I think it was somewhere in the Middle East.
According to the Book of Genesis, the Garden of Eden was surrounded by four rivers---the Tigris, the Euphrates, the Pishon, and the Gihon. In the early 1980s, using satelite-captured pictures, an archaeologist located the Pison and the Gihon, which are now at the bottom of the Persian Gulf. In the old days, the Garden was climatically well-suited for bananas, but not for apples. Even today, the Middle East is well-known as one of the main producers for bananas, but not apples.
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But you can find apples even in the Middle East.
I know, but not many apples. As a matter of fact, in old days, they couldn't grow apples in the Middle East. Only with the modern technology can they grow apples nowadays over there.
I see... Tell me, Kato, who on earth drew an apple in the picture of the Garden of Eden for the first time?
Hugo van der Goes did.
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Hugo van der Gose
(Circa 1440 - 1482)
Painter of early Flemish school.
Born in or near Ghent, van der Goes was enlisted as a member of the painters' guild of Ghent as a master in 1467.
The following year he was involved in the decoration of the town of Bruges in celebration of the marriage between Charles the Bold and Margaret of York.
He provided heraldic decorations for Charles's joyeuse entrée to Ghent in 1469 and later in 1472.
He was dean of the Guild of Saint Luke in Ghent from 1474 till 1476.
SOURCE: "Hugo van der Goose"
Free encyclopedia "Wikipedia (Wikipedia)"
Because van der Gose painted apples in the Garden of Eden, the people who saw his picture came to believe that Adam and Eve ate an apple, instead of a banana. Since then, almost all the painters drew apples in the picture of "Adam and Eve."
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ADAM AND EVE by Jan (Mabuse) Gossaert (1478-1532)
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Adam and Eve by Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1533),
the German Renaissance painter.
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ADAM AND EVE by Hans Baldung Grien (1484-1545)
(To be followed)