The “Kinds” of Genesis 1: What Is the Meaning of Min?

Hmmm, interesting. I’ve never heard the parable of the sower interpreted as referring to the church.

I would suggest rehashing error isn’t identifying it. Those people aren’t here to defend themselves and they aren’t here promoting anything.

That’s very surprising. Read the parable again and very carefully. It is describing four types of soil (i.e. people) who respond variously to the Gospel message. All four types are found in church communities.

Of course it is.

They are welcomed to come here and defend their errors. Those who are deceased still have books promoting their errors. Error doesn’t get a free pass. Public error merits public identification.

They are promoting their errors in the venues they find most effective and profitable.

Error is much like evil: It tends to prosper when those who know the truth are silent.

Meanwhile, what is the meaning of “Kinds” in Genesis 1? What is the meaning of MIN?

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The clear meaning? Maybe some of the specifics are not crystal clear, but what is clear enough is that the Scriptures identify a distinct separation occurring during the creation of animals, and one that would clearly have to preclude UCA of animals and any kind of encroachment of the animal species on the human species, meaning our common descent from animals would be out of the question scripturally.

May be “some”? ZERO specifics are provided!

The “distinct separation” precluding the UCA [Universal Common Descent] of animals is something you will have a hard time finding in Genesis 1.

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It is often pointed out by literalists that Genesis 1 buttresses the word yom with reference to the evening and morning passing the day. It may that much the same literary emphatic is at play here with respect to kinds. Where did all those familiar animals come from? - God created them. Each one by kind, and thence issued the injunction to be fruitful and multiply. The identity of the universally created animals is reinforced, so that the animals you see around you are the ones God created and obedient to His command, as surely as the Sabbath follows your six days of labor.

That doesn’t mean the parable as a whole is about the church.

If you were identifying specific books only sure. But you haven’t been.

To be explicit - if you don’t like what I believe, just tell me.

However, I think you venting about other Christians brings shame to the name of Jesus. It isn’t going to change my mind, and it isn’t helping your reputation in my eyes.

Again, you need to read much more carefully. I have cited The Genesis Flood (1962, Henry Morris & John Whitcomb Jr.) as well as Duane Gish many times.

I do happen to think various “creation science” ministries have brought shame to the name of Jesus when they’ve made false claims about science and the Bible. But my focus in these threads has been the specific errors they publicly promote and try to impose upon the Bible and the general public.

Enhancing one’s personal reputation is not a goal of Peaceful Science. But truth about the evidence is certainly a goal.

That too is not the focus of Peaceful Science. Please review the Mission & Values statement of Peaceful Science at:


Have you noticed how many of us on Peaceful Science disagree with various of Dr. Todd Wood’s Young Earth Creationist ideas—and yet we praise him for his honesty about the scientific evidence and evolutionary biology? Dr. Wood well illustrates that one can passionately defend YEC concepts while also being truthful as a scientist and carefully faithful to the teachings of Jesus Christ.

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One of the problems with modern YEC is that don’t think any of the animals we know today were part of the original creation.

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Not what I meant.

I was hoping you’d try to understand what I meant, and the general impression your comments create for me and perhaps others besides me.

Mostly everyone here agrees with you and is not YEC. So these errors would be of little importance to them. So when you mention error that generally that means you have an audience of me or otherwise you are bringing up errors of Christians for no reason. So I’d prefer you’d direct something to me in a question. Otherwise it comes off as passive aggressive. I tried to ignore the comments but it’s been very increasingly frustrating.

Generally I was thinking of these verses:
Therefore if there is any [a]consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, 2 fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. 3 Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. 4 Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.

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Do you see this as a problem as it relates to the meaning of the word?

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Valerie,

There have already been a few suggestions about where you can read about the history of the YEC view. The history of various forms of creationism, as it happens, is one of my areas of expertise as an historian of science. Here’s something I wrote that should be pretty accessible to non-historians. Reading it should help you see why the Adventist piece of the story is not as widely known as it should be–or used to be, as far as I can tell. Ham and AiG basically bury it miles deep under diluvial detritus.

Regrettably, some of the images in the original version were taken out when BL repackaged this piece. It seems to be the trend these days, to aim blog posts at people with phones, rather than desktops, and as part of that scheme to discourage the use of high quality visual images. When I wrote regularly for BL, one of my principal goals was to use lots of interesting, colorful images to round out the narrative and attract readers. In that sense, the medium drives the message…

If you get a chance to read it, please feel free to come back with any questions.

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Ok. Thanks. I will. One of my questions is if the idea of scientific creationism didn’t really become popular until there were an evangelical “champion.” So I’m interested to read to see if that hypothesis is true or not.

Ok, I read it and am unimpressed. I can’t see the point of the trouble to go public with a range war between two or three personalities. And frankly, I would say I am thankful to Price for his contribution to the Church. I am not seventh-day and I am quite sure my denomination would not have needed to take cues from any evangelical figure like Price in order to stay pure and on point with Creation. When I was eight, my mother had me sit with her and read the Genesis text out loud. I have believed it ever since.

Not sure I understand your question, but I see this as a problem for the overall picture of what Gen 1 (i.e., it’s trying to tell Israel that the world they live in, including the animals around them, were created by God). My problem with YEC’s take on the word is the internal inconsistency with the various texts that employ it (Gen, Lev, Deut), as well larger hermeneutical and literary issues about what the text is trying to say.

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That’s a spectacularly helpful article, @TedDavis. Thank you for posting the link. I had read it back in 2017 but it was well worth reading again.

It brought back many memories. I knew John Whitcomb and many of his Grace Theological Seminary colleagues—and worked closely with some of them. (I remember being told the story of how a Wheaton College science professor, who had heard about the book Whitcomb and Morris were working on, made the 3.5 hour drive down to Winona Lake, IN on a Saturday in order to try and talk Whitcomb out of the project. How might history have been different if that professor had been successful?) I still have a first edition of The Genesis Flood buried somewhere amongst my things which I got from my uncle after hearing Whitcomb preach on Noah’s Flood at a church in my community around the time of the book’s original publication in 1962.

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Did you know Dick Averbeck (or Gary Phillips)? Dick has been involved with the GAE. (I knew Gary through Bryan College.)

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POSTSCRIPT: Whenever I asked John Whitcomb a question about “flood geology” which went “beyond the script” found in The Genesis Flood, he would say something along the lines of, “Henry can better answer that one.” But I never found that to be the case. I became very frustrated that the explanations found in The Genesis Flood were very wide but not very deep. And it was hard to get either of the co-authors to beyond the summary statements of what they had already written. I got the impression that their brand of “flood geology” was not all that amenable to revision in the light of new evidence. It was more about decree than data. That’s probably why the 50th Anniversary Edition of the book was published without any corrections, updating, or significant commentary.

As most everyone knows, Morris was a hydraulic engineering professor and Whitcomb was an Old Testament seminary professor. Yet both seemed out of their element: I don’t think Whitcomb ever took the time to really delve into even elementary geology in any systematic way, and Morris seemed just as much out of his comfort zone when dealing with the Hebrew text of Genesis. I was always curious to know but never really figured out how deeply they were willing to research the science and exegesis of those not within their own narrow ideological camp. Their Q&A sessions at conferences were popular with their own followers but they both tended to be dismissive and unhelpful when a questioner began to expose flaws in their ideas. (Years later, when I became aware of Dr. Hugh Ross of Reasons to Believe, I was immediately impressed at how he handled similar Q&A circumstances—even though I disagree with Ross on various of his ideas. On the other hand, the 1960’s and 1970’s were a different era culturally.)


POSTSCRIPT: Yes, @deuteroKJ, I knew Dick Averbeck. But Gary Phillips is familiar in name only. We probably talked at SBL or AAR/SBL but I can’t really place him. So many years have passed.)

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I think you missed the strong inference that all the references to “kinds” in the text were made on purpose, and with divine foresight, specifically aimed at our current day and the threat of an evolutionary paradigm:

“Let the land produce vegetation according to their various kinds.”

The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds

trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds.

So God created the great creatures of the sea according to their kinds

and every winged bird according to its kind.

“Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds:

and the wild animals, each according to its kind.”

God made the wild animals according to their kinds,

the livestock according to their kinds,

and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds.

Even Man is a separate kind

“Let us make mankind”

So God created mankind

So it looks like your claim of “ZERO specifics provided” by the text is wrong.

So I read both and it seems that your article is talking past what Ham is saying in a way. Also the history ignores the extreme flux in the American church with so many European immigrants taking their view with them late in the 19tb century, as well as the African American churches that arose in the 19th and 20th century.

To me the relevant questions are whether the science of creationism had a major influence on churches or Christians holding or changing to a belief that creation is recent and that common descent is unbiblical.

I really don’t see that it did as I’m still not that familiar with any of the science of creationism. It’s not as if those views were used to justify a certain interpretation of Genesis in my experience. For me, the only thing used to justify it was scripture and I’m sure that’s true for the denomination I grew up in for all the time it has been in existence. Of course, I can only speak for my experience but if Christians based their beliefs on creation science I’m sure they’ve probably given them up by now. If you’ve based your beliefs on an idol, the idol will fail.

To me the apologetics ministries are useful only to show other scientific possibilities. But unless those possibilities can be tested and are falsifiable, they are not necessarily correct.

When I search for something related to Genesis, I actually find that the best resources for discussing aspects of Genesis without directly involving any science come from AIG.

Me too.

I concur that that which God reveals in a Biblical text is there for a purpose.

(1) I see nothing in the Genesis text which is “specifically aimed” at any particular era of future readers. These are timeless truths.

(2) Not only is there nothing about “an evolutionary paradigm”, the Genesis text and evolutionary biology entirely agree on this basic fact: creatures reproduce after their own kind. That is, reproduction always produces offspring which are very much like the parents! (Indeed, if ever offspring were unlike their parents—that is, not of their own variety/kind—that would be powerful evidence against the Theory of Evolution.)

In any case, I stand by my claim that the Genesis text provides no specifics, just general truths of the kind you we just discussed and can mutually agree upon: God made living creatures along with the rest of the universe and reproduction produces offspring which are like the parents.

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