While pomegranates are “all the rage” these days due to the plethora of health benefits they offer, their religious significance remains little known to even the most avid pomegranate lover.
Some scholars even go as far as to say that ”the fruit eaten by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden may have been a pomegranate. These scholars argue that it is unlikely that apples would have flourished in the first garden.”
While this is highly unlikely to be true, it does make sense that the pomegranate with its abundance of blood red seeds would serve as the ideal symbol of everything from Persephone’s temptation in Greek mythology to the fruitfulness of the Promised Land and Abraham’s many descendants to the passion of a young maiden’s crimson lips and cheeks or the blood of martyrs to the unity of all individual believers brought together in Christ’s church.
From the famous Unicorn Tapestries to Botticelli’s Madonna of the Pomegranate (above), this fruit offers a cornucopia of religious imagery upon which to meditate.
December 4th, 2012 | 12:57 pm
This reminds me of a point that the late Francis Schaeffer made, one which I’ve always liked. I googled and found this quote attributed to him in “Art and the Bible” –
“Christians . . . ought not to be threatened by fantasy and imagination. Great painting is not “photographic”: think of the Old Testament art commanded by God. There were blue pomegranates on the robes of the priest who went into the Holy of Holies. In nature there are no blue pomegranates. Christian artists do not need to be threatened by fantasy and imagination, for they have a basis for knowing the difference between them and the real world “out there.” The Christian is the really free person–he is free to have imagination. This too is our heritage. The Christian is the one whose imagination should fly beyond the stars.”
He’s referring to Exodus 28:33, which the New International Version translates as: “Make pomegranates of blue, purple and scarlet yarn around the hem of the robe, with gold bells between them.”
Granted, the wording leaves open the option of creating each pomegranate with a mix of blue, purple and scarlet yarns. But the resulting rainbow fruit would illustrate Schaeffer’s insight even better….
December 4th, 2012 | 1:41 pm
Perhaps of interest, the venerable Economist magazine (or as they call it, “newspaper”), recently launched a blog about the Middle East called “Pomegranate”. Their explanation for this designation (& prefaced by a verse from the Song of Solomon) can be found here: http://www.economist.com/blogs/pomegranate/2012/11/our-new-middle-east-blog
Love this fruit — takes some work to get the seeds, but so worthwhile! Thanks for this piece!
December 4th, 2012 | 2:28 pm
Although I learned a neat trick for getting the seeds out of a pomegranate from Martha Stewart, one assumes Eve had not even the most basic of kitchen equipment, and it just seems very unlikely that she would struggle with a pomegranate, let alone convince Adam to try it.
December 4th, 2012 | 3:24 pm
Wouldn’t apples be in the Garden, since it included every fruit that was good to eat?
December 4th, 2012 | 4:25 pm
The pomegranate fruit being the fruit eaten in the garden view made sense to me as it must’ve been truly willful disobedience as well as the fact that the high priest’s garment had bells of pomegranates hanging by his feet to remind him how he walks in the presence of The LORD. Why that particular fruit if not a reminder of the original scene?
December 4th, 2012 | 4:32 pm
Wouldn’t apples be in the Garden, since it included every fruit that was good to eat?
Modern apples are the product of thousands of years of domestication. Original wild apples were no doubt scarcely edible. Of course, what has been done to some varieties of apples (in particular, Red Delicious) has turned them back into something nearly inedible again, although they look great. Of course, I suppose one could speculate that the fruits in the Garden of Eden were all even better than our modern, domesticated, hybridized varieties today, and “the Fall” caused them to deteriorate.
December 4th, 2012 | 5:12 pm
They do not offer any more health benefits than most other citrus. They just cost more at the grocery store. And if indeed the forbidden fruit, there were lots of hidden costs.
December 4th, 2012 | 6:43 pm
I always thought that pomegranates symbolized the resurrection.
Artists have much to answer for. The idea that St. Paul was knocked off a horse on the road to Damascus is an artist’s convention—there is no horse mentioned in Scriptures. Likewise, Scripture does not say that there were three magi (three gifts, yes, but who said it took three to bring them?).
December 4th, 2012 | 11:59 pm
Of course, what has been done to some varieties of apples (in particular, Red Delicious) has turned them back into something nearly inedible again, although they look great.
I concur, mealy and fragile flesh makes this variety something I avoid. Give me a nice tart Granny Smith or a big Honey Crisp any day.
I suppose red delicious can be made into a passable apple sauce, given a little citrus to prevent degradation and plenty of cinnamon for flavor.
December 5th, 2012 | 12:01 am
Why should the Scripture mention his horse when it doesn’t mention his faithful dog?
December 5th, 2012 | 12:13 am
One notes that the name “apple” is merely a pun — and a late one, too, since it springs from the Latin name, “malus”.
December 5th, 2012 | 8:04 am
There is also Lorenzo Lippi’s Woman with Mask and Pomegranate, one of the paintings woven into Roger Scruton’s reflective Gifford Lectures, The Face of God:
http://www.wikigallery.org/wiki/painting_258000/Lorenzo-Lippi/Woman-with-a-Mask-2
December 5th, 2012 | 1:59 pm
[...] Katherine noted yesterday, the pomegranate is “the ideal symbol of everything from Persephone’s temptation in Greek [...]
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