What Are The Kinds In Genesis?

What Are The Kinds In Genesis?

An Introduction

Bodie Hodge, M.Sc., B.Sc., PEI (Donate)

Biblical Authority Ministries, May 28, 2025

Have you ever had a conversation with someone about the Ark of Noah or creation and they clearly didn’t understand what a “kind” was? I’ve ended up with a lot of these conversations, where I have to stop and explain.

I don’t say this in a critical way because I used to be like that too! I used to struggle understanding what exactly a kind was. I was influenced by the secular world, and had never been taught about kinds, but I was taught extensively about species, genus, and family in the modern classification system. This is likely the case with most people. Some today have been influenced by evolutionary clades too.

So, I understand why some people simply have little to no knowledge about biblical kinds. But don’t look at it as a negative, but instead see this as an opportunity to gain a better understanding of animals and creation—and the cool biological research that is currently occurring regarding created kinds.

Post-Flood variations in the turkeys with brown and white feathers trouncing around on the family farm; Picture by Bodie Hodge

Kinds

The term “kinds” in the book of Genesis refers to the original created categories of living and growing organisms (e.g., plants, animals, and man) that God made during Creation Week (Genesis 1). For example, consider (all verses NKJV):

·       Genesis 1:11  Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth”; and it was so.

·       Genesis 1:12  And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

·       Genesis 1:21  So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters abounded, according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

·       Genesis 1:24  Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind: cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its kind”; and it was so.

·       Genesis 1:25  And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

A proper view of "kinds" is central to a good understanding of biology, the fossil record, and the events surrounding Noah's Ark. This is particularly important when studying the Flood.

Definition of "Kind"

A “kind” (Hebrew: min) is not equivalent to modern taxonomic terms like species or genus. Instead, a “kind” is generally broader—closer to the classification of a family or sometimes order—of course, there are exceptions due to the fallibility of modern classification. Mankind, for example, is not a broad range but closer to a species level (including the post-Flood variations of homo sapiens sapiens and homo neanderthalensis[1]) and definitely not at the “family” level of classification!

• For example, the canine kind includes domestic dogs, wolves, dingoes, Peruvian hairless dogs, coyotes, jackals, and possibly foxes.
• The feline kind includes lions, tigers, bobcats, leopards, and domestic cats.
• The equine kind includes horses, donkeys, ponies, and zebras.

All animals within a kind descended from common ancestors that God originally created. How many of those original ancestors were within that kind at creation is unknown. With man, there were two (Adam and Eve for mankind), but God likely had a multitude of animals within a kind at creation as initial populations.

Some members of the horse kind; Image from Presentation Library.

Nevertheless, the land animals that boarded the Ark bottlenecked at the time of the Flood with 2 of each kind of unclean land-dwelling, air-breathing animals and 7 of the clean land-dwelling, air-breathing animals. Thus, this reset the population after the Flood for these land animals.

Baraminology

A relatively new field of science is called baraminology (from Hebrew bara, “created,” and min, “kind” and -ology which is, “the study of”), which seeks to identify and group organisms into their original created kinds.

Baraminologists use a combination of criteria:

• Primary: Hybridization ability (whether animals can interbreed or produce offspring)
• Secondary: Genetic similarities
• Secondary: Morphological traits; that is a “Cognatum” level
• Secondary: Discontinuities in the fossil record

If animals can interbreed, even indirectly (e.g., A breeds with B, and B breeds with C, so A and C are part of the same kind), they are the same kind. Thus, hybridization is the primary factor to determine kind boundaries. Though some have lost the ability to reproduce due various factors (think ovary issues, size, etc.)—this doesn’t make them any less members of a particular created kind.

The secondary factors become more of a factor when dealing with extinct, creatures that don’t live near one another, or those that have lost the ability to breed back (due to defects, size, “heat” times, geography, etc.). But these secondary factors still require interpretation.  

Some likely members of the ceratopsian kind; Image from Presentation Library.

Kinds On Noah’s Ark

A central reason it is necessary to understand kinds is to defend the feasibility of the number of boarded animals on Noah’s Ark. Genesis 6:20-7:16 says that Noah took two of each kind (and seven of some). This means:

• Only representative kinds, not our modern understanding of species, were brought aboard.
• From these original Ark kinds after the Flood, diversification and speciation occurred rapidly after the Flood due to the splitting of the gene pool as animals travelled to distinct places. This splitting and variation within post-Flood environments are what resulted in today’s species.

Thus, instead of needing millions of modern “species” on the Ark that had to go on two-by-two or by seven, it was less than 1,400 animal kinds.[2] Instead, the species of today are the descendants of those original animal kinds that were aboard the Ark—minus the sacrificial ones of course (Noah sacrificed of the clean animals per Genesis 8:20).

The point is that based on the kinds, the animals easily fit on board the Ark with food and water. Even using intentionally inflated maximum numbers—they easily fit.[3]  

Changes, But Not Evolutionary Changes

Animals change. Everyone agrees on that. These changes are small changes within kinds, such as variations in dogs or variations within cats. These changes are often observable from one generation to the next. What we don’t observe are large-scale changes that convert one kind into another kind (e.g., fish evolving into amphibians or dogs changing into cows).

• Change within a kind is expected and observed.
• No new, complex, functional genetic information is added—just reshuffling, nearly neutral mutations, or losses of existing genetic material.
• No kind has ever been observed to change into another kind.

For instance, wolves, coyotes, and dogs all descended from the same ancestral wolf-like kind that was on board the Ark and many of our modern dog breeds were bred just like that over the course of the last 200 years or so. This was done by artificial selection. But regardless of how much breeding of dogs, they will never change into mice. Fish never evolved into reptiles nor are dogs changing into cats or whales.

Some members of the dog kind as they lose and filter information; Image from Presentation Library.

Here are a few examples of common critters you might recognize and some selected members of that kind:

Common Name	Kind	Modern Examples
Cat Kind	Feline	Lion, Tiger, Cougar, Bobcat, Housecat
Dog Kind	Canine	Dog, Wolf, Dingo, Coyote
Elephant Kind	Proboscidea	Asian, Mammoths, Mastodons, African Elephants
Bear Kind	Ursidae	Polar Bear, Grizzly, Black Bear
Horse Kind	Equidae	Horse, Donkey, Pony, Zebra
Deer Kind	Cervidae	Deer, Elk, Moose
Chicken Kind	Phasianidae	Pheasants, Japanese Bantum, Phoenix Chicken

Some members of the chicken kind; Image from Presentation Library.

Instead of animals evolving from a single common ancestor as is taught from the evolutionary belief, the Bible has various created kinds that have variation, and at the Flood some of this variation was reset by those that survived on the Ark. This is called the creation orchard.

Creationist Orchard contrasted with the Evolutionary Tree; Image from Presentation Library.

 

Plants and Insects

The term "kind" also applies to plants and creeping things (Genesis 1:11-12, 24-25). However, less research has been done on identifying these kinds. So, this is an area of future research for creationists.

Like animals, plants and insects were created with abundance during Creation Week. Therefore, there may have been great diversity within the created plant kinds from the onset for instance.

To Summarize

The biblical term “kind” refers to the original, created groups of animals and plants that God made during Creation Week. These are usually broader than species—roughly on the level of family or sometimes order in modern taxonomy.

Understanding kinds are greatly helpful when studying creation, the Ark, and the limits of biological change. Through baraminology, the hope is to catalog and identify these kinds and is an exciting area of research today.

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[1] Homo neanderthalensis used to be homo sapiens neanderthalensis (a subset of Homo sapiens) before being reclassified; it shows the arbitrariness of some of this. Nevertheless, Neanderthals wore clothes, buried their dead, made musical instruments and tools just like man does. All the anatomical features of Neanderthals are within the human population of today. So, they should be listed as man.  

[2] Ken Ham and Bodie Hodge, A Flood of Evidence, Master Books, Green Forest, AR, 2016, p. 209-218.

[3] Ken Ham and Bodie Hodge, A Flood of Evidence, Master Books, Green Forest, AR, 2016, p. 209-218.