God said, “Let the earth yield grass, herbs yielding seeds, and fruit trees bearing fruit after their kind, with their seeds in it, on the earth;” and it was so. The earth yielded grass, herbs yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit, with their seeds in it, after their kind; and God saw that it was good. God created the large sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed, after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind. God saw that it was good. God said, “Let the earth produce living creatures after their kind, livestock, creeping things, and animals of the earth after their kind;” and it was so. God made the animals of the earth after their kind, and the livestock after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind. God saw that it was good.
Every kind of living thing appeared separately and none ever evolved from another.
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The cited passage
What current science says
Common descent — the fact that all living things share ancestry — is one of the best-supported findings in all of science, backed by fossils, DNA, and speciation we can watch happen today. Evolution by natural selection is the well-tested theory that explains how it happens. Every living thing shares ancestry: humans and bananas still share roughly half their genes because we trace back to the same distant relatives. Life is one branching family tree billions of years old.
What the text says
This comes from Genesis 1, where plants, animals, and people are each made 'after their kind' in finished form — distinct kinds that do not descend from shared ancestors.
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.