Have you ever wondered, “If we all came from Adam and Eve, like the Bible says, where did all the races come from?” Over the years, we’ve been asked that question many times . . . and the answers are in Genesis!

Scripture is clear that everyone is descended from Adam and Eve:

Thus, it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being.” (1 Corinthians 15:45)

The man called his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all living. (Genesis 3:20)

And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth. (Acts 17:26)

The Bible has always taught that there can only be one human race since “every nation” traces its ancestry back to “one man” (Adam). This has been confirmed by observational science. In 2000, the Human Genome Project released its first draft of the human genome, and it unanimously declared that from a genetic standpoint, “there’s only one race.” The Bible had said this all along!

So why do we look a little different from one another? We have variation between human beings because of the genetic diversity God put into the DNA of Adam and Eve. Various genes code for minor differences such as eye shape and skin shade (not skin color—we’re all the same basic color: brown, just different shades due to varying amounts of the pigment melanin), and Adam and Eve had diversity in these genes.

About 2,350 years later, Adam and Eve’s descendants were so wicked that God destroyed them with a global flood, saving just eight people on board the ark. After the flood, Noah’s descendants rebelled against God yet again and were judged, this time by a confusion of their languages, forcing them to spread out and fill the earth. This event explains why we have people groups.

As mankind spread out, no two language groups took the same genetic information. Some took genes that would only allow a small amount of melanin to be produced, leading to a people group dominated by those with a light shade of skin. Others took genes that allowed production of a lot of melanin, leading to a people group dominated by those with a dark shade of skin. Others had genes for almond-shaped eyes, curly hair, and so on. Overall, the difference between these people groups is very minor (in fact, there is only 0.1% genetic difference between any two humans, so it’s less than that!). Obvious physical differences soon arose, but everyone traces their ancestry back to Babel, from there to Noah, and from there to Adam and Eve.

We’re all one race—the human race. And because we’re all one race, we all have the same ultimate problem: We sinned in Adam and continue to sin. And that’s why we all need Jesus, the last Adam, who died in our place and offers the free gift of eternal life to all who will believe.
You can learn more about biblical history, the biblical answer to racism, and so much more at AnswersInGenesis.org.

Avery Foley is a writer and speaker for Answers in Genesis, the Creation Museum, and the Ark Encounter. She and her husband are homeschool parents to five young children and the producers of Building Blocks, a chronological walk through the Bible for kids on Answers.tv.