this transcript was auto-generated. 

So, we are going to begin this time by first considering the family line of Japeth.

The Japhethites 

2 The sons of Japheth: Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshek and Tiras. 3 The sons of Gomer: Ashkenaz, Riphath and Togarmah. 4 The sons of Javan: Elishah, Tarshish, the Kittites and the Rodanites (From these the maritime peoples spread out into their territories by their clans within their nations, each with its own language.

(Genesis 10: 2-4)

Before I begin to unpack the information, I need to confirm that what I am about to tell you is credible even when considering it from sources outside the bible. The earliest chapter of the bible are sometimes referred to as the pre-history section of scripture. (Gen Ch 1-12).But chapter 1-9 refers to events that there is limited historical record of but not here in chapter 10-12 There are from this point forward all sorts of ancient writings and monument inscriptions about these things through which archaeologists and linguistic scholars have been able to identify where these people listed ended up.  Even in the last 20 years modern DNA evidence is testifying to the fact that the descriptions of the nation’s described in Gen 10 is, I quote “entirely reasonable”. So, we can go through these lists of names and tell you what nations were produced as described first here in this first original narrative. Let me just briefly tell you where these ended up. 

Gomer, evidently some of his descendants moved westward to Germany and Western Europe even into Britain. Magog those ended up in the SE corner of the Black Sea into what be today is called modern Georgia.  Media (the Medes) settled in Persia and some of them even settled in India. Javan, became the ancient Greeks, as a matter of fact, the same Hebrew word is translated Greece in the book of Daniel in chapter 8 and Ch 10 and then Chapter 11. Tubal & Meshek became the people of modern Russia. In fact, Meshek, is where the Ruddian get their modern name for the city of Moscow from.  Tiras is modern Italy, so it seems, Noah’s son Japheth produced, the Russian people the Italians, the Greeks the Germans, the Welsh, and even some of the people who settle in India.  Does the India thing that strike you as odd, most of those areas to our modern mind are in Europe no so much in India. India is not in Europe it’s in Asia. Interesting we’ll come back to that later. 

Now that’s the pattern, he gives all the sons of Japheth and then he picks some out. In verse 2 he picks out Gomar, and as I said Gomar produced the Germans.  Then in verse four Javan who ended up settling in what is modern Greece and it seems some of them ended up in Cyprus with some of them perhaps ending up in Spain and Macedonia.  Then finally, we are told, “From these the maritime [Mediterranean coastal] peoples spread out into their territories by their clans within their nations, each with its own language.” 

So, what he says is these children and grandchildren become families, and those families became nations. That's his point.  By the way he mentions languages, but he does not at this point go into any detail we're going get to that next week.  Before I go on, I want to pause for a moment and go back and talk about Japheth. Japheth was the father of what experts today call the Indo-European people. Have you've ever heard the term Indio European? That term refers to India and obviously European.  In many people’s minds these 2 parts of the world are not usually thought of as having a common origin or history but the term Indo- European is a standard modern classification of people.  This classification was created when it was discovered approximately 200 years ago that these 2 far-flung people have a common origin. I found this most fascinating in the 19th century linguists discovered that languages of the East and of the West were related.  Meaning they had a common language ancestor. Let me quote from Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary which states this.  The Indo-European languages are, I quote[i]. 

“The most important linguistic family of the globe. Comprising the chief languages of Europe together with the Indo-Iranian and other Asiatic tongues. First revealed in the 19th century [by] comparative and historical studies of these languages. They are also referred to as the Indo- Germanic or Arian languages. It was established they [all] have descent from a common ancestor language spoken in the late Stone Age probably in Eastern Europe by a people or group of people of unknown mixed race. The prehistoric dialects of the primitive Indo-Europeans accomplished a migration into India, Persia, Greece, via Rome and the western borders of Europe. Where we find at the beginning of [recorded] history. The parent speech was highly inflected but historically the tendency of the Indo-European language has been towards the analytical type of construction such as found in French and English.

I know that's a little heavy going, but you get the drift of what’s going on here. This means what Genesis Ch 10 says and written at least 1500 years before some linguists analysed languages and discovered in 1800 and something that the European language and the languages of India and Persia had a common ancestor.  Had they read and believed their Bible we could have saved them a whole lot of time and hard work.   I find that most interesting. And that is the family line of Japheth! 

Next time we will talk about the sons of Ham.

[i] Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary (1965 Westminster)