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   Generations of Noah   
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   "Table of Nations" redirects here. For a list of countries, see list of   
   sovereign states.   
      
   This T and O map, from the first printed version of Isidore's Etymologiae,   
   identifies the three known continents as populated by descendants of Sem   
   (Shem), Iafeth (Japheth) and Cham (Ham).   
      
   The world according to the Mosaic account (1854 map)   
   The Generations of Noah or Table of Nations (Genesis 10 of the Hebrew Bible)   
   is a genealogy of the sons of Noah and their dispersion into many lands after   
   the Flood,[1] focusing on the major known societies. The term nations to   
   describe the descendants    
   is a standard English translation of the Hebrew word "goy", following the c.   
   400 CE Latin Vulgate's "nationes", and does not have the same political   
   connotations that the word entails today.[2]   
      
   The list of 70 names introduces for the first time a number of well known   
   ethnonyms and toponyms important to biblical geography[3] such as Noah's three   
   sons Shem, Ham and Japheth, from which were derived Semites, Hamites and   
   Japhetites, certain of Noah'   
   s grandsons including Elam, Ashur, Aram, Cush, and Canaan, from which the   
   Elamites, Assyrians, Arameans, Cushites and Canaanites, as well as further   
   descendants including Eber (from which "Hebrews"), the hunter-king Nimrod, the   
   Philistines and the sons    
   of Canaan including Heth, Jebus and Amorus, from which Hittites, Jebusites and   
   Amorites.   
      
   As Christianity took over the Roman world, it adopted the idea that all the   
   world's peoples were descended from Noah. But the tradition of Hellenistic   
   Jewish identifications of the ancestry of various peoples, which concentrates   
   very much on the East    
   Mediterranean and the Near East and is described below, became stretched and   
   its historicity questioned. Not all Near Eastern people were covered, and   
   northern peoples important to the Late Roman and medieval world, such as the   
   Celtic, Slavic, Germanic    
   and Nordic peoples were not covered, nor were others of the world's peoples,   
   such as sub-Saharan Africans, Native Americans and peoples of Central Asia,   
   the Indian subcontinent, the Far East and Australasia. A variety of   
   arrangements were devised by    
   scholars in order to make the table fit, with for example the Scythians, who   
   do feature in the tradition, being claimed as the ancestors of much of   
   northern Europe.[4]   
      
   According to Joseph Blenkinsopp, the 70 names in the list express symbolically   
   the unity of the human race, corresponding to the 70 descendants of Israel who   
   go down into Egypt with Jacob at Genesis 46:27 and the 70 elders of Israel who   
   visit God with    
   Moses at the covenant ceremony in Exodus 24:1–9.[5]   
      
   Contents    
   1	Table of Nations   
   1.1	Book of Genesis   
   1.2	Book of Chronicles   
   1.3	Book of Jubilees   
   1.4	Septuagint version   
   1.5	1 Peter   
   2	Sons of Noah: Shem, Ham and Japheth   
   3	Ethnological interpretations   
   3.1	In Flavius Josephus   
   3.2	In Hippolytus   
   3.3	In Jerome   
   3.4	In Isidore of Seville and later authors   
   3.5	Other interpretations: Descendants of Japheth   
   3.6	Other interpretations: Descendants of Ham   
   3.7	Other interpretations: Descendants of Shem   
   4	Extrabiblical sons of Noah   
   5	See also   
   6	Notes   
   7	References   
   7.1	Citations   
   7.2	Bibliography   
   8	External links   
   Table of Nations   
   Book of Genesis   
      
   Noah dividing the world between his sons. Anonymous painter; Russia, 18th   
   century   
   Chapters 1–11 of the Book of Genesis are structured around five toledot   
   statements ("these are the generations of..."), of which the "generations of   
   the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth" is the fourth. Events before the   
   Genesis flood narrative, the    
   central toledot, correspond to those after: the post-Flood world is a new   
   creation corresponding to the Genesis creation narrative, and like Adam, Noah   
   has three sons who will populate the world. The correspondences extend forward   
   as well: there are 70    
   names in the Table, corresponding to the 70 Israelites who go down into Egypt   
   at the end of Genesis and to the 70 elders of Israel who go up the mountain   
   with Sinai to meet with God in Exodus. The symbolic force of these numbers is   
   underscored by the way    
   the names are frequently arranged in groups of seven, suggesting that the   
   Table is a symbolic means of implying universal moral obligation.[6][7] The   
   number 70 also goes back to the predecessor of Hebrew religion, the Canaanite   
   mythology, where 70    
   represents the amount of gods in the divine clan who are each assigned a   
   subject people, and where the supreme god El and his consort, Asherah, has the   
   title "Mother/Father of 70 gods," which, due to the coming of monotheism, had   
   to be changed, but its    
   symbolism lived on in the new religion.[citation needed]   
      
   The overall structure of the Table is:   
      
   1. Introductory formula, v.1   
   2. Japheth, vv.2–5   
   3. Ham, vv.6–20   
   4. Shem, 21–31   
   5. Concluding formula, v.32.[8]   
   The overall principle governing the assignment of various peoples within the   
   Table is difficult to discern: it purports to describe all humankind, but in   
   reality restricts itself to the Egyptian lands of the south, the Mesopotamian   
   lands, and Anatolia/   
   Asia Minor and the Ionian Greeks, and in addition, the "sons of Noah" are not   
   organised by geography, language family or ethnic groups within these   
   regions.[9] The Table contains several difficulties: for example, the names   
   Sheba and Havilah are listed    
   twice, first as descendants of Cush the son of Ham (verse 7), and then as sons   
   of Joktan, the great-grandsons of Shem, and while the Cushites are North   
   African in verses 6–7 they are unrelated Mesopotamians in verses 10–14.[10]   
      
   The date of composition of Genesis 1–11 cannot be fixed with any precision,   
   although it seems likely that an early brief nucleus was later expanded with   
   extra data.[11] Portions of the Table itself 'may' derive from the 10th   
   century BCE, while others    
   reflect the 7th century BCE and priestly revisions in the 5th century BCE.[1]   
   Its combination of world review, myth and genealogy corresponds to the work of   
   the Greek historian Hecataeus of Miletus, active c.520 BCE.[12]   
      
   Book of Chronicles   
      
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