Concept

Japhetites

The term Japhetites (in adjective form Japhethitic or Japhetic) refers to the descendants of Japheth, one of the three sons of Noah in the Bible. The term has been adopted in ethnological and linguistic writing from the 18th to the 20th century but has now become obsolete. In medieval ethnography, the world was believed to have been divided into three large-scale groupings, corresponding to the three classical continents: the Semitic peoples of Asia, the Hamitic peoples of Africa and the Japhetic peoples of Europe. The term has been used in modern times as a designation in physical anthropology, ethnography and comparative linguistics. In anthropology, it was used in a racial sense for white people (the Caucasian race). In linguistics, it was used as a term for the Indo-European languages. These uses are now mostly obsolete. In a linguistic sense, only the Semitic peoples form a well-defined family. The Indo-European group is no longer known as "Japhetite", and the Hamitic group is now recognized as paraphyletic within the Afro-Asiatic family. Among Muslim historians, Japheth is usually regarded as the ancestor of the Gog and Magog tribes, and, at times, of the Turks, Khazars, and Slavs. Genesis flood narrative and Sons of Noah In the Genesis, Japheth is mentioned as one of the three sons of Noah. The other two sons of Noah, Shem and Ham, are the eponymous ancestors of the Semites and the Hamites, respectively. In the Biblical Table of Nations (Genesis ), seven sons and seven grandsons of Japheth are mentioned: Gomer Ashkenaz Riphath Togarmah Magog Madai Javan Elishah Tarshish Kittim Dodanim Tubal Meshech Tiras The intended ethnic identity of these "descendants of Japheth" is not certain; however, over history, they have been identified by Biblical scholars with various historical nations who were deemed to be descendants of Japheth and his sons — a practice dating back at least to the classical Jewish-Greek encounters. For example, the Roman Jewish historian Josephus states in the Antiquities of the Jews, I.VI.

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Related concepts (9)
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Jews (יְהוּדִים, Yehudim, jehuˈdim) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group, nation or ethnos native to the Levant, originating from the ancient Israelites and Hebrews of historical Israel and Judah. Jewish ethnicity, nationhood, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the ethnic religion of the Jewish people, although its observance varies from strict to none. Jews take their origins from a Southern Levantine national and religious group that arose towards the end of the second millennium BCE.
Tubal
Tubal (תֻבָל, Ṯuḇāl), in Genesis 10 (the "Table of Nations"), was the name of a son of Japheth, son of Noah. He is known to be the father of the Caucasian Iberians (ancestors of the Georgians) according to primary sources. Later, Saint Jerome refashioned the Caucasian Iberia (Georgia) into the Iberian Peninsula (Western Europe) and Isidore of Seville consolidated this mistake. Modern scholarship has identified the biblical Tubal with Tabal, an Anatolian state and region mentioned in Assyrian sources.
Generations of Noah
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