The Table of Nations or Sons of Noah is an extensive list of descendants of Noah Noah was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the tenth and last of the antediluvian Patriarchs. The biblical story of Noah is contained in chapters 6–9 of the book of Genesis, where he saves his family and representatives of all animals from the flood by constructing an ark. He is also mentioned as the "first husbandman" and in the story appearing within the Torah The term Torah , also known as the Pentateuch (Greek: Πεντάτευχος from πεντα- penta- [five] and τεῦχος teuchos [tool, vessel, book]), refers to the Five Books of Moses—the entirety of Judaism's founding legal and ethical religious texts. A "Sefer Torah" (סֵפֶר תּוֹרָה, "book of Torah") or at Genesis The Book of Genesis is the first book of the Hebrew Bible, and the first of five books of the Torah, called the Pentateuch in the Christian Old Testament 10, representing an ethnology Ethnology is the branch of anthropology that compares and analyzes the origins, distribution, technology, religion, language, and social structure of the ethnic, racial, and/or national divisions of humanity from an Iron Age In archaeology, the Iron Age is the historical period in any area during which cutting tools and weapons were mainly made of iron or steel. The adoption of this material coincided with other changes in society, including differing agricultural practices, religious beliefs and artistic styles Levantine The Levant (Arabic: بلاد الشام Bilād aš-Šām, also known as Arabic: المشرق al-Māšriq, am-Māšriq) describes, traditionally, the Eastern Mediterranean at large, but can be used as a geographical term that denotes a large area in Western Asia formed by the lands bordering the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, roughly perspective.
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Historicity and coverage
The world according to the Mosaic account (1854 map)A literal interpretation Literal and figurative language is a distinction in traditional systems for analyzing language. Literal language refers to words that do not deviate from their defined meaning. Figurative language refers to words, and groups of words, that exaggerate or alter the usual meanings of the component words. Figurative language may involve analogy to of Genesis 10 suggests that the present population of the world was descended from Noah's three sons: Shem Shem was one of the sons of Noah in the Hebrew Bible. He is most popularly regarded as the eldest son, though some traditions regard him as the second son. Genesis 10:21 refers to relative ages of Shem and his brother Japheth, but with sufficient ambiguity in each to have yielded different translations. The verse is translated in the KJV as ", Ham, and Japheth Japheth is one of the sons of Noah in the Hebrew Bible. In Arabic citations, his name is normally given as Yafeth bin Nuh (Japheth son of Noah), and their wives. Until the mid-19th century, this was taken by many as historical fact. They are still taken as historical by many Orthodox Jews Orthodox Judaism is a formulation of Judaism that adheres to a relatively strict interpretation and application of the laws and ethics canonized in the Talmudic texts and subsequently developed and applied by the later authorities known as the Gaonim, Rishonim, and Acharonim. Generally, Orthodox Judaism consists of two different streams, the, Muslims A Muslim or Moslem is an adherent of the religion of Islam. Literally, the word means "one who submits (to God)". Muslim is the participle of the same verb of which Islam is the infinitive. All Muslims observe Sunnah, but differences in the definition of what is and what is not Sunnah has led to the emergence of sectarian movements.[, and Christians A Christian (pronounced /ˈkrɪstʃən/ ) is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, who Christians believe is the Messiah (the Christ in Greek-derived terminology) prophesied in the Hebrew Bible, and the son of God. Most Christians believe in the doctrine of[citation needed].
There are disputes as to how many of the peoples of the Earth it was intended to cover, and as to its accuracy[citation needed].
Many Jews, Christians, and Muslims, retain the belief that the table applies to the entire people of earth.
In the Biblical view, the listed children of Japheth, Shem and Ham correspond to various historic nations and peoples. In the typical interpretation, these sons of Noah correspond to three races: Europeans, Semites, and Africans. Others read it as a guide only to local ethnic groups.
Sans any verifiable alternate reality, secular scholarship obstinately rejects this traditional view of historicity, and holds instead that the genealogy is merely a traditional one, aimed at explaining the relations between the ethnic groups of the ancient Near East The Ancient Near East refers to early civilizations within a region roughly corresponding to the modern Middle East: Mesopotamia , ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, ancient Iran (Elam, Media, Parthia and Persia), Armenia, Anatolia (modern Turkey) and the Levant (modern Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Cyprus, and Crete). As such, it is a, perhaps re-edited at the time of the text's final composition in the 7th century BC.
Table of nations
Shem, Ham and Japheth. Illustration by James Tissot Tissot was born at Nantes. He studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris under Ingres, Flandrin and Lamothe, and exhibited in the Paris Salon for the first time at the age of twenty-three. In 1861 he showed The Meeting of Faust and Marguerite, which was purchased by the state for the Luxembourg Gallery. His first characteristic period made him 1904.The table of nations in Genesis 10 begins by listing Noah's three sons:
- Ham, forefather of the southern peoples (Hamitic Hamitic is an historical term for the peoples supposedly descended from Noah's son Ham, paralleling Semitic and Japhetic. It was formerly used for grouping the non-Semitic Afroasiatic languages , but since, unlike the Semitic branch, these have not been shown to form a phylogenetic unity, the term is obsolete in this sense Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area. With a billion people (as of 2009, see table) in 61 territories, it accounts for about 14.72% of the world's human population)
- Shem Shem was one of the sons of Noah in the Hebrew Bible. He is most popularly regarded as the eldest son, though some traditions regard him as the second son. Genesis 10:21 refers to relative ages of Shem and his brother Japheth, but with sufficient ambiguity in each to have yielded different translations. The verse is translated in the KJV as ", forefather of the middle peoples (Semitic In linguistics and ethnology, Semitic was first used to refer to a language family of largely Middle Eastern origin, now called the Semitic languages. This family includes the ancient and modern forms of Akkadian, Amharic, Arabic, Aramaic, Ge'ez, Hebrew, Maltese, Phoenician, Tigre and Tigrinya among others)
- Japheth Japheth is one of the sons of Noah in the Hebrew Bible. In Arabic citations, his name is normally given as Yafeth bin Nuh (Japheth son of Noah), forefather of the northern peoples (Japhetic Japhetic is a term that refers to the supposed descendants of Japheth, one of the three sons of Noah in the Bible. It corresponds to Semitic and Hamitic (descendants of Ham). Variations of the term include Japhetite and Japhethitic Eurasia Eurasia is a large landmass covering about 52,990,000 km2 or about 10.6% of the Earth's surface (36.2% of the land area) located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. Sometimes considered a single continent, Eurasia comprises the traditional continents of Europe and Asia (with Eurasia being a portmanteau of the two), concepts which)
The names of these sons are thought to have significance related to Semitic roots. Ham means "warm".[1] Shem merely means "name" or "renown", "prosperity".[2] Japheth means "open".[3]
It then proceeds to detail their descendants. The identification of several of the first generation is aided by the inclusion of the second, although several of their identifications are less certain. (The copy of the table in the biblical book of 1 Chronicles The Books of Chronicles are part of the Hebrew Bible. In the Masoretic Text, it appears as the first or last book of the Ketuvim (the latter arrangement also making it the final book of the Jewish bible). Chronicles largely parallels the Davidic narratives in the Books of Samuel and the Books of Kings. It appears in two parts, 1 & 2 Chronicles, chapter 1 has occasional variations in the second generation, most likely caused by the similarity of Hebrew letters such as Resh and Daleth). Forms ending in -im are plurals, probably indicating names of peoples, and not intended as the name of a single person.
Japheth's descendants
Main article: Japhetic Japhetic is a term that refers to the supposed descendants of Japheth, one of the three sons of Noah in the Bible. It corresponds to Semitic and Hamitic (descendants of Ham). Variations of the term include Japhetite and Japhethitic- Gomer, son of Japheth. Usually identified with the migratory Gimirru (Cimmerians The Cimmerians or Kimmerians were ancient equestrian nomads of Indo-European origin) of Assyrian inscriptions, attested from about 720 BC).
- Ashkenaz In the Bible, Ashkenaz is Gomer's first son, brother of Riphath and Togarmah , thereby a Japhetic descendant of Noah. A kingdom of Ashkenaz is called together with Ararat and Minni against Babylon (Jer. 51:27), son of Gomer. It has been conjectured that this name arose from a misprint in Hebrew for "Ashkuz", by reading a nun Nun is the fourteenth letter of many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew נ and Arabic alphabet nūn ن . It is the third letter in Thaana (ނ), pronounced as "noonu". Its sound value is IPA: [n] for a vav Vav is the sixth letter of many Semitic alphabets, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic (in abjadi order; it is 27th in modern Arabic order). In most Semitic languages it represents the voiced labial-velar approximant IPA: [w], and in some (such as Hebrew and Arabic) also the long close back rounded vowel /uː/ depending on. Ashkuz and Ishkuz were names used for the Scythians In Classical Antiquity, Scythia was the area in Eurasia inhabited by the Scythians, from the 8th century BC to the 2nd century AD. Its location and extent varied over time but usually extended farther to the west than is indicated on the map opposite. The area known to classical authors as Scythia included:, who first appear in Assyrian records in the late 8th century in the Caucasus region, and at times occupied vast areas of Europe and Asia. Additionally, in Medieval Hebrew Extinct as a regularly spoken language by the 4th century CE, but survived as a liturgical and literary language; revived in the 1880s, Germany is known as Ashkenaz, and is the origin of the term Ashkenazic Jews.
- Riphath (Diphath in Chronicles), son of Gomer. Identification with Paphlagonians of later antiquity has been proposed, but this is uncertain.
- Togarmah Togarmah third son of Gomer, and grandson of Japheth, brother of Ashkenaz and Riphat (Genesis 10:3). He is held to be the ancestor of the peoples of the South Caucasus (the Georgians and the Armenians), son of Gomer. Some Armenian Armenia /ɑrˈmiːniə/ (Armenian: Հայաստան, transliterated : Hayastan, IPA: [hɑjɑsˈtɑn]), officially the Republic of Armenia (Հայաստանի Հանրապետություն, Hayastani Hanrapetut’yun, [hɑjɑstɑˈni hɑnɾɑpɛtuˈtʰjun]), is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Situated at the and Georgian Georgia (Georgian: საქართველო, IPA: [sɑkʰɑrtʰvɛlɔ] ; English pronunciation: /ˈdʒɔrdʒə/ ( listen)) is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Situated at the juncture of Eastern Europe and Western Asia, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the south by Turkey and Armenia, traditions have claimed descent from Togarmah; other authors have attempted to connect them with Turkic peoples Islam , Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Shamanism, Tengriism, Atheism, Agnosticism and Syncretic religion.
- Magog, son of Japheth. This name appears in the Assyrian texts as mat gugu, The Land of Gugu, and means Lydia. Gugu is known in Greek texts as Gyges. Is claimed as an ancestor in both Irish The mythology of pre-Christian Ireland did not entirely survive the conversion to Christianity, but much of it was preserved, shorn of its religious meanings, in medieval Irish literature, which represents the most extensive and best preserved of all the branches of Celtic mythology. Although many of the manuscripts have failed to survive, and and Hungarian Hungarians are an ethnic group primarily associated with Hungary, a Central European state, and its predecessor states (the Kingdom of Hungary and the People's Republic of Hungary). There are around 14 million Hungarians, of whom 10 million live in today's Hungary (as of 2001). About 2.5 million Hungarians live in areas that belonged to (the medieval traditions. Flavius Josephus Josephus , also Yosef Ben Matityahu (Joseph son of Matthias) and Titus Flavius Josephus was a first-century Jewish historian and hagiographer of priestly and royal ancestry who recorded first century Jewish history, such as the First Jewish–Roman War which resulted in the Destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. He has been credited by many as, followed by Jerome Saint Jerome (formerly Saint Hierom) (Latin: Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus; Greek: Εὐσέβιος Σωφρόνιος Ἱερώνυμος) was an Illyrian Christian priest and apologist. He was the son of Eusebius, of the city of Stridon, which was on the border of Dalmatia and Pannonia (and was overthrown by the Goths). He is best known for and Nennius Nennius was a Welsh monk of the 9th century. He has traditionally been attributed with the authorship of the Historia Brittonum, based on the prologue affixed to that work, This attribution is widely considered a secondary tradition, makes him ancestor of the Scythians In Classical Antiquity, Scythia was the area in Eurasia inhabited by the Scythians, from the 8th century BC to the 2nd century AD. Its location and extent varied over time but usually extended farther to the west than is indicated on the map opposite. The area known to classical authors as Scythia included: who dwelt north of the Black Sea The Black Sea is an inland sea bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects it to the Aegean Sea region of the Mediterranean. These waters.
- Madai Madai is a son of Japheth and one of the 16 grandsons of Noah in the Book of Genesis of the Hebrew Bible. Biblical scholars have identified Madai with various nations, from the Mitanni of early records, to the Medes of much later records. The Medes, reckoned to be his offspring by Josephus and most subsequent writers, were also known as Madai,, son of Japheth. The Medes The Medes, were an ancient Iranian people who lived in the northwestern portions of present-day Iran. This area is known as Media (also Medea; Greek Μηδία, Old Persian Māda; the English adjective is Median, antiquated also Medean). They entered this region with the first wave of Iranian tribes, in the late second millennium BC (the Bronze of Northwest Iran Iran (Persian: ایران [ʔiˈɾɒn] ), officially the Islamic Republic of Iran is a country in Central Eurasia and Western Asia. The name Iran has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was also known to the western world as Persia. Both Persia and Iran are used first appear in Assyrian inscriptions as Amadai in about 844 BC.
- Javan, son of Japheth. This name is said to be connected with the Ionians The Ionians were one of the four major tribes into which the Classical Greeks considered the population of Hellenes to have been divided (along with the Dorians, Aeolians and Achaeans). The Ionian dialect was one of the three major linguistic divisions of the Hellenic world, together with the Dorian and Aeolian, one of the original Greek tribes.
- Elishah, son of Javan. Identifications have been proposed with various Aegean peoples such as Elis Elis, or Eleia is an ancient district, that corresponds with the modern Ilia Prefecture. It is in southern Greece on the Peloponnesos peninsula, bounded on the north by Achaea, east by Arcadia, south by Messenia, and west by the Ionian Sea of northwestern Peloponnesos, or Ellis of Phthia Phthia (Greek: Φθία or Φθίη; transliterations: Fthii , Phthíē (ancient)) in ancient Greece was the southernmost region of ancient Thessaly, , on both sides of Othrys Mountain. It was the homeland of the Myrmidones tribe, who took part in the Trojan War under Achilles.
- Tarshish Around 1665, the followers of Shabbatai Zvi in İzmir interpreted the ships of Tarshish as Dutch ships that would transport them to the Holy Land (Tarshishah in Chronicles), son of Javan. Has been variously connected with Tarsus Tarsus is a historical city in south-central Turkey, 20 km inland from Mediterranean Sea. It is part of Adana-Mersin Metropolitan Area, fourth largest metropolitan area in Turkey with a population of 2.75 million. Tarsus is an administrative district in Mersin Province and lies in the core of Çukurova, a geographical, economical and cultural in Anatolia, or Tartessus in southern Spain Spain (pronounced /ˈspeɪn/ spayn; Spanish: España, pronounced [esˈpaɲa] ( listen)), officially the Kingdom of Spain (Spanish: Reino de España), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.[note 6] Its mainland is bordered to the south and east by the Mediterranean Sea except for.
- Kittim, offspring of Javan. Usually connected with Kition Larnaca, is a city on the southern coast of Cyprus. It has a population of 140,000 (2010) and is the island's second largest commercial port and an important tourist resort. The island's largest airport, Larnaca International Airport is located on the outskirts of the city in Cyprus, but name appears in other texts with a variety of interpretations.
- Dodanim (Rodanim in Chronicles), offspring of Javan. Usually connected with large Aegean island of Rhodes near the coast of Asia Minor.
[NOTE: the Greek Septuagint (LXX) of Genesis includes an additional son of Japheth, "Elisa", in between Javan and Tubal; however, as this name is found in no other ancient source, nor in I Chronicles, he is almost universally agreed to be a duplicate of Elisha, son of Javan. Nevertheless, the presence of Elisa (as well as that of Cainan son of Arpachshad, below) in the Greek Bible accounts for the traditional enumeration among early Christian sources of 72 families and languages, from the 72 names in this chapter, as opposed to the 70 names, families and languages usually found in Jewish sources.]
- Tubal, son of Japheth. He is connected with the Tabali, an Anatolian tribe, and both the Iberians of the Caucasus and those of the Iberian peninsula (modern Spain and Portugal), as well as Illyrians and Italics. In the book of Jubilees he was bequeathed the three 'tongues' of Europe.
- Meshech, son of Japheth. He is regarded as the eponym of the Mushki Phrygian tribe of Anatolia who, like the Tabali, contributed to the collapse of the Hittites ca. 1200 BC. The Mushki are considered one of the ancestors of the Georgians, but also became connected with the Sea Peoples who roved the Mediterranean Sea. Some consider him father of Moscow, combining his name Meshech (Msc) and his wife's name, Kva (Cwa).
- Tiras, son of Japheth. This name is usually connected with that of Thracians, an ancient nation first appearing in written records around 700 BC. It has also been associated with some of the Sea Peoples such as Tursha and Tyrsenoi, with the river Tiras (Dniester), and sometimes with the Anatolian region of Troas, dating to the later 13th century BC. In tractate Yoma, of the Talmud, it states that Tiras is Persia.
Japheth is traditionally seen as the ancestor of Europeans, as well as some more eastern nations; thus Japhetic has been used as a synonym for Caucasians. Caucasian itself derives in part from the assumption that the tribe of Japheth developed its distinctive racial characteristics in the Caucasus, where Mount Ararat is located. The term Japhetic was also applied by the early linguists (brothers Grimm, William Jones, Rasmus C. Rask and others) to what later became known as the Indo-European language group, on the assumption that, if descended from Japheth, the principal languages of Europe would have a common origin, which apart from Finno-Ugric, Kartvelian, Pontic, Nakh, Dagestan, and Basque, appears to be the case. In a conflicting sense, the term was also used by the Soviet linguist Nikolai Marr in his Japhetic theory intended to demonstrate that the languages of the Caucasus formed part of a once-widespread pre-Indo-European language group.
In classical times, and among a minority of modern students, various arguments have been proposed that the Roman deity Jupiter may have been a deified Japheth, and further, that he became known in Greek as 'Iapetos', and in Sanskrit as 'Pra-Japati'. Modern linguists dispute whether there are any actual connections between 'Pra-Japati', which translates as Lord of Creatures, Iapetos, Jupiter, a corruption of Dyeus Pater, meaning 'sky father', and Japheth, meaning open, and attempts to connect these deities with Japheth are often regarded as poor scholarship and folk etymology.
During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Biblical statement that God shall enlarge Japheth (Genesis 9:27) was used by some imperialists as a justification for the "enlargement" of European territories through Imperialism, interpreted as part of God's plan for the world.[citation needed].
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