Generations of Noah

[3] The list of 70 names introduces for the first time several well-known ethnonyms and toponyms important to biblical geography,[4] such as Noah's three sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, from which 18th-century German scholars at the Göttingen school of history derived the race terminology Semites, Hamites, and Japhetites.

Certain of Noah's grandsons were also used for names of peoples: from Elam, Ashur, Aram, Cush, and Canaan were derived respectively the Elamites, Assyrians, Arameans, Cushites, and Canaanites.

Scholars later derived a variety of arrangements to make the table fit, with for example the addition of Scythians, which do feature in the tradition, being claimed as the ancestors of much of Northern Europe.

[8] Other Bible commentators observe that the Table of Nations is unique compared to other genealogies since it depicts a "broad network of cousins", with a "shallow chain of brotherly relationships".

[21] Its version of the Table of Nations is substantially the same as that in the Hebrew text, but with the following differences: In the First Epistle of Peter, 3:20, the author says that eight righteous persons were saved from the Great Flood, referring to the four named males, and their wives aboard Noah's Ark not enumerated elsewhere in the Bible.

Based on an old Jewish tradition contained in the Aramaic Targum of pseudo-Jonathan ben Uzziel,[33] an anecdotal reference to the Origines Gentium in Genesis 10:2–ff has been passed down, and which, in one form or another, has also been relayed by Josephus in his Antiquities,[34] repeated in the Talmud,[35] and further elaborated by medieval Jewish scholars, such as in works written by Saadia Gaon,[36] Josippon,[37] and Don Isaac Abarbanel,[38] who, based on their own knowledge of the nations, showed their migratory patterns at the time of their compositions: "The sons of Japheth are Gomer,[39] and Magog,[40] and Madai,[41][42] and Javan,[43] and Tuval,[44] and Meshech[45] and Tiras,[46] while the names of their diocese are Africa proper,[a] and Germania,[47] and Media, and Macedonia, and Bithynia,[48] and Moesia (var.

---Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Genesis 10:2–5"The sons of Ḥam are Kūš, and Miṣrayim,[58] and Fūṭ (Phut),[59] and Kenaʻan,[60] while the names of their diocese are Arabia, and Egypt, and Elīḥerūq[61] and Canaan.

"[92] ---Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Genesis 10: 22–28Because of the traditional grouping of people based on their alleged descent from the three major biblical progenitors (Shem, Ham, and Japheth) by the three Abrahamic religions, in former years there was an attempt to classify these family groups and to divide humankind into three races called Caucasoid, Mongoloid, and Negroid (originally named "Ethiopian"), terms which were introduced in the 1780s by members of the Göttingen school of history.

By the end of the 19th century, the influential German encyclopaedia, Meyers Konversations-Lexikon, divided humanity into three major races called Caucasoid, Mongoloid, and Negroid, each comprising various sub-races.

[147] According to Irish mythology, as found in the Annals of the Four Masters and elsewhere, Noah had another son named Bith who was not allowed aboard the Ark, and who attempted to colonise Ireland with 54 persons, only to be wiped out in the Deluge.

[citation needed] Some 9th-century manuscripts of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle assert that Sceafa was the fourth son of Noah, born aboard the Ark, from whom the House of Wessex traced their ancestry; in William of Malmesbury's version of this genealogy (c. 1120), Sceaf is instead made a descendant of Strephius, the fourth son born aboard the Ark (Gesta Regnum Anglorum).

[citation needed] An early Arabic work known as Kitab al-Magall "Book of Rolls" (part of Clementine literature) mentions Bouniter, the fourth son of Noah, born after the flood, who allegedly invented astronomy and instructed Nimrod.

Martin of Opava (c. 1250), later versions of the Mirabilia Urbis Romae, and the Chronica Boemorum of Giovanni de' Marignolli (1355) make Janus (the Roman deity) the fourth son of Noah, who moved to Italy, invented astrology, and instructed Nimrod.

[citation needed] According to the monk Annio da Viterbo (1498), the Hellenistic Babylonian writer Berossus had mentioned 30 children born to Noah after the Deluge, including Macrus, Iapetus Iunior (Iapetus the Younger), Prometheus Priscus (Prometheus the Elder), Tuyscon Gygas (Tuyscon the Giant), Crana, Cranus, Granaus, 17 Tytanes (Titans), Araxa Prisca (Araxa the Elder), Regina, Pandora Iunior (Pandora the Younger), Thetis, Oceanus, and Typhoeus.

[150] Historian William Whiston stated in his book A New Theory of the Earth that Noah, who is to be identified with Fuxi, migrated with his wife and children born after the deluge to China, and founded Chinese civilization.