God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs to mark seasons, days, and years; and let them be for lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth;” and it was so. God made the two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light to the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. God saw that it was good. There was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.
Plants existed before the sun.
Botany
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The cited passage
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.
What current science says
Plants need sunlight to live - they use it to make food through photosynthesis. Without the sun, plants would die within days. In reality, the sun existed for about a billion years before the first simple plants evolved on Earth.
What the text says
Genesis 1:11 describes plants being created on the third day, before the sun is made on the fourth day in Genesis 1:14-19 - placing plants on Earth before the sun that drives their growth.
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.