Japheth
Japheth (
יֶפֶת /
יָפֶת "enlarge",
Standard Hebrew Yéfet /
Yáfet,
Tiberian Hebrew /
) is one of the
sons of Noah in the
Bible. He is most popularly regarded as the youngest son, though some traditions regard him as the eldest son. Genesis 10:21 refers to relative ages of Japheth and his brother Shem, but with sufficient ambiguity to have given rise to different translations. The verse is translated in the
KJV as follows, "Unto Shem also, the father of all the children of Eber, the brother of
Japheth the elder, even to him were children born.". However, the
Revised Standard Version gives, "To Shem also, the father of all the children of Eber,
the elder brother of Japheth, children were born."
In
Arabic citations, his name is normally given as
Yafeth (يافث) ibnu Nuh (Japheth son of Noah).
For those
Jews,
Muslims, and
Christians who take the
genealogies of Genesis to be historically accurate, Japheth is commonly believed to be the father of the
Europeans. The link between Japheth and the Europeans stems from
Genesis 10:5, which states that the sons of Japheth moved to the "isles of the
Gentiles," commonly believed to be the
Greek isles. According to that book, Japheth and his two
brothers formed the three major
races:
*Japheth is the father of the
Japhetic race
*
Ham is the father of the
Hamitic race
*
Shem is the father of the
Semitic race
The term "Japhetic" was also applied by
William Jones and other pre-
Darwinian linguists to what later became known as the
Indo-European language group. In a different sense, it was also used by the
Soviet linguist
Nikolai Marr in his
Japhetic theory.
In the Bible, Japheth is ascribed seven sons:
Gomer,
Magog,
Tiras,
Javan,
Meshech,
Tubal, and
Madai. According to
Josephus (
Antiquities of the Jews I.6):
"Japhet, the son of Noah, had seven sons: they inhabited so, that, beginning at the mountains
Taurus and
Amanus, they proceeded along Asia, as far as the river
Tanais (Don), and along Europe to
Cadiz; and settling themselves on the lands which they light upon, which none had inhabited before, they called the nations by their own names."
Josephus subsequently detailed the nations supposed to have descended from the seven sons of Japheth.
Among the nations various later writers have attempted to assign to them are as follows:
* Javan:
Greeks (
Ionians)
* Magog:
Scythians,
Slavs,
Irish,
Hungarians* Madai:
Mitanni,
Mannai,
Medes,
Persians,
Indo-Aryans,
Kurds
* Tubal:
Tabali,
Georgians,
Italics,
Illyrians,
Iberians,
Basques * Tiras:
Thracians,
Goths,
Jutes,
Teutons
* Meshech:
Phrygians, Caucasus Iberians
* Gomer: Scythians,
Turks,
Armenians,
Welsh,
Picts, Irish,
Germans.
In the same vein,
Georgian nationalist histories associate Japheth's sons with certain ancient tribes, called
Tubals (
Tabals,
Tibarenoi in Greek) and
Meshechs (Meshekhs/Mosokhs,
Moschoi in Greek), who they claim represent non-Indo-European and non-Semitic, possibly "Proto-Iberian" tribes of
Asia Minor of the
3rd-
1st millennias BC.
In the
19th century, Biblical
syncretists associated the
sons of Noah with ancient pagan gods. Japheth was identified by some scholars with figures from other mythologies, including
Iapetos, the
Greek Titan; the
Indian figures
Dyaus Pitar and
Pra-Japati, and the
Roman Iu-Pater or "Father Jove", which became
Jupiter. Some or all of these resemblances may be mere coincidence; the actual
Proto-Indo-European etymology of
Latin Iuppiter or
Iūpiter, i.e. "Jupiter", is usually reconstructed as
dyeu-pəter, "sky-father" (the
* denotes a hypothetical, unattested form).
William Shakespeare's play
Henry IV, Part II contains a wry comment about people who claim to be related to royal families.
Prince Hal notes of such people,
...they will be kin to us, or they will fetch it from Japhet. (II.ii 117-18)Genesis 10:5 was often interpreted to mean that the peoples of Europe were descended from Japheth. Clearly, then, any two Englishmen must have at least this one ancestor in common, and thus any individual could claim kinship with the king.
*
Caucasian race*
Japhetic*
Whites*
Proto-Indo-Europeans*
Wives aboard the Ark*
Easton Bible dictionary about Japheth*
Smith's Bible Dictionary about Japheth*
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia: Japheth*
Japheth in the
Jewish Encyclopedia*
Japheth's family tree at complete-bible-genealogy.com
