The Discovery of Genesis (41 page)

“So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit and ate” (Genesis 3:6). Commemorating this sad historical event is the character
, a second word for
beginning
—this time evidently indicating the
beginning
of sin. The scene is of a woman, by herself, eating the forbidden fruit. It takes three elements to construct this character: the
woman
;
secretly, alone
A; and to indicate
eating
, a
mouth
. Two ancient renderings of this character especially support the interpretation:
shows the radical
secretly
, like a fruit, actually disappearing into the open
mouth
of the
woman
. A more modified form
depicts a
hand
feeding the
mouth
of the
woman
. Thus the entire episode of the genesis of sin is recorded in a single ideograph.