“He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ “The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and gather them up?’
Predators, parasites, and disease did not exist originally in nature and were introduced suddenly at a single point in time.
Biology
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The cited passage
What current science says
The fossil record shows predation going back over 500 million years to the Cambrian Explosion, when animals first evolved eyes, claws, and armor in an arms race between predators and prey. Parasites have been documented in 515-million-year-old fossils from China — tube worms stealing food from ancient clam relatives. Pain receptors (nociceptors) evolved because organisms that could detect and avoid tissue damage survived longer. Death is literally how natural selection works — without it, evolution stops. These aren't glitches introduced by an enemy. They're the engine that built every living thing on Earth.
What the text says
This draws from Matthew 13:28 ('An enemy hath done this'), a parable about weeds sown in a wheat field. Some believers extend this to argue that all natural suffering — predators, parasites, disease, and death — was introduced into an originally perfect creation by a supernatural enemy. The verse itself is about farming, but the theological extrapolation is widespread.
Three honest ways to read this passage
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As history
The text records how its authors understood the world with the knowledge they had. Read this way, a difference from modern science is a window into the ancient mind, not a failure.
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As accommodation
The text speaks to its first audience in their own terms, to make a point that isn't mainly about physics or biology. Read this way, the scientific detail is the vehicle, not the cargo.
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As contradiction
The text makes a claim about the physical world that modern findings dispute. Read this way, the difference is a genuine factual disagreement worth naming.
GEBible doesn't pick one of these for you. Each entry shows the passage, what it says, and what current science says — nothing more.