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"A classificatory group comphrehending (one or) a number of species, possessing
certain common structural characters distinct from those of any other group."
In the N.T. the word genos stands for "offspring", "stock", "kind", "kindred", and
"nation".
"To another (divers) kinds of tongues" (I Cor. 12: 10).
"Diversities of tongues" (I Cor. 12: 28).
"Many kinds of voices" (I Cor. 14: 10).
The word which is added in the LXX version of Gen. 1: 11, 12 is homoioteta,
"likeness", a word which is certainly rightly used in Gen. 1: 16 of the creation of man.
Whether or not the translators were justified in inserting the word "likeness" here as an
expansion of the idea which they saw was resident in the Hebrew min and the Greek
genos, there can be no doubt that to them the use of the phrase "after his kind" indicated a
very distinctive element in the record of creation. Each genus was distinct and separate,
and we must therefore--with the Hebrew original and Greek translation before us--
regard the idea of the evolution of one species from another as being contrary to the
express teaching of Holy Writ.
When dealing with the problem of the resurrection body in I Cor. 15:, the Apostle
turns to the works of God in order to provide an illustration and an argument. We are not
concerned, at the moment, with the question of the resurrection, but the passage may help
us to understand what Moses meant when he wrote "After his kind".
"It may chance of wheat, or of some other grain; but God giveth it a body as it hath
pleased Him, and to every seed his own body" (I Cor. 15: 37, 38).
Kai ekasto ton spermaton to idion soma ("and to each of the seeds its own peculiar
body.").
"All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of
beast, another of fishes, and another of birds" (I Cor. 15: 39).
There is no word in the original of this verse for "kind", but it contains the
untranslated conjunction men . . . . . de which demands recognition, as follows:
"There is one flesh on the one hand, of men, but on the other hand, there is the flesh of
beasts."
The Apostle's argument falls to the ground if evolution be admitted.
Returning to Gen. 1: 11, 12, we further note that the fruit tree yielded fruit "after his
kind", that its seed was "in itself", and that this seed also was "after its kind". In addition
to this very specific statement concerning the creation of separate species of plants, we
read in Gen. 2: 5:
"And every plant of the field BEFORE it was in the earth, and every herb of the field
BEFORE it grew" (Gen. 2: 5).