DID YOU KNOW?
The answer
A fig. Some early Jewish traditions took the fruit to be a fig because of what the pair do next: they "sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves" (Genesis 3:7). The leaves came from the tree they had just eaten from, on that reading.
Why it’s interesting
Genesis itself never names the fruit. It calls the tree "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" (Genesis 2:17) and never says what kind of fruit grew on it.
Scholarly consensus
Learn the Bible.
Not just the stories, but the history, authorship, and scholarship behind it.