The Roots of the Nations: Foreword
The tenth chapter of Genesis stands alone in the literature of antiquity. It is a unique document in that, although it is preserved in essentially Hebrew literature, there does not seem to be any bias for or against those who later became their chief enemies. It appears to be a very ancient document. Of this fact there are numerous internal evidences.
Prof. Kautzsche of Halle, a scholar of international repute and of Higher Critical persuasion, says of it:
The so-called Table of Nations remains, according to all results of monumental exploration, an ethnographic original document of the first rank, which nothing can replace.
The record continually makes incidental observations which have seemed to contradict flatly what was believed to be certain, on the basis of extra-Biblical research. Yet in every case thus far, the record has turned out to be quite correct. Some of these statements were notices in the Classical literature. For example, it is stated that the founders of Babylonian civilization were not Semites but Hamites. This has proved to be correct, but the correctness of this statement has only been vindicated by modern Archaeology.
Again, Elam is said to have been founded by a Semite, yet the Elamites of history were not a Semitic people. But a French expedition which excavated Susa, the capital city of Elam, found below the ruins of historical Elam bricks and other remains of an older civilization with Babylonian inscriptions showing the peoples to have been of Semitic stock.
The omissions in this Table of Nations are as significant as the inclusions. Thus although Sidon, Gerar, and Gaza are mentioned, Tyre is omitted. Anyone acquainted with the Old Testament will at once recall how Tyre and Sidon are almost always coupled together as though they were inseparable. But it appears that Tyre was not founded until sometime during the thirteenth century B.C. The omission of the name may be an indication that this document was written somewhere before the thirteenth century. It may also be noted that the city of Jerusalem is not mentioned either, though one would certainly have expected it to have been if this manuscript was written as late as the Higher Critics have claimed. In the matter of dating, it should also be pointed out that although Eber (or Heber) is mentioned (verse 24), from whom it appears Abraham was descended, there is no mention of the latter. It seems impossible to account for this omission except by postulating either an extraordinary divine restraint on the part of the writer, or a date prior to Abraham. In this case, we are back around 2000 B.C. more or less, i.e., within a few centuries of the Flood at a time when some of Noah's immediate family may still have been alive.
Among the descendants of Japheth is listed one whose name is given as Javan, who is almost universally held to have been the 'father' of the Ionians, a group of people whose name seems clearly to have been derived from their progenitor. The implications from the context in which the name Javan appears seems to be that these people inhabited Asia Minor and the Greek coastlands at an early period. Yet there is no trace of them during the historical times of Israel and Greece, except for the survival of the name in one of the Greek states. Had this Table of Nations been written at so late a date as the sixth century, it is difficult to see how the inclusion of Javan in this context could have been made - except, of course, under inspiration.
Moreover, Cush is evidently considered still as closely linked with Babylonia. But in later times, the name Cush was reserved for Ethiopia. Although the people from the original Cush probably migrated into Ethiopia via Arabia, it seems that the author of this Table would have stated the relationship in a slightly different way if the Ethiopians were the people he had in mind.
The fact is that, although this Table is set forth in a way which is confusing at times because the names of individuals and the names of tribes are indiscriminately listed as 'sons' almost as if the author could not distinguish between the name of a person and the name of a tribe, the peoples so recorded are related clearly and simply in such a way that the latest ethnological research confirms it at most points, and, in those sections where apparent conflicts do occur, is hesitant in pronouncing finality.
This brings us to two further brief observations. First, that where Scripture touches the subject matter of any one field of Science, it exercises what has been aptly termed "supernatural tact." J. Cynddylan Jones, referring to the first and second chapter of Genesis, makes an observation which would apply equally well to Genesis 10:
No one reading this account would come away with it having any conception of the recent discoveries of Science. But it is one thing to write in order to teach Science, but another quite to write so as not to contradict it. It is a healthy instinct of the mind to expect, if not to demand, that revealed truth should not contradict natural truth: and this is all that is here claimed. The harmony is negative not positive.
By which the author intends to point out that while natural science may add greatly to the brief account of the origin of nations which is given here, in the end it will not add that which contradicts it. The statements which are made in Genesis 10 are true as far as they go and sufficient for the purpose for which they were written, namely, to show that all men are of one blood, and that all men belong to one of the three branches of the race of which Shem, Ham, and Japheth were the fathers.
Secondly, the indiscriminate use of personal and tribal names may be completely justified if we allow that the author intended by this genealogy to say something more than merely that such-and-such a people were derived from such-and-such an individual. It has been suggested that the object of this document is not so much to call attention by these names to genetic relationships, as it is to point out certain 'racial' characteristics which stamped the individuals who shared them as 'children' of a single father. This method is adopted quite frequently in Scripture, giving rise on the one hand to terms like Sons of Belial, and on the other hand terms like Children of Israel, Daughters of Abraham, Sons of the Kingdom, etc. Even more devastatingly descriptive of evil character than the term Sons of Belial is the Lord's phrase, "Ye are of your father the Devil." In all these cases, it is clear that Fathership in this sense is to be applied indiscriminately to an individual and to a group in the same breath. In recent history it has been pointed out that "Nietzsche was a child of Darwin." No one would be misled by this statement who knew anything about subsequent history. Nor would they be misled if we were to say that Nietzsche was the father of Hitler and the Nazis.
Yet this is not to imply that in Genesis 10 we have a 'philosophical' treatment of racial origins only. This is factual, both philosophically and genetically.
This is, then, a unique document indeed. As W.F. Albright has said,
It stands absolutely alone in ancient literature, without a remote parallel even among the Greeks, where we find the closest approach to a distribution of peoples in genealogical framework. But among the Greeks the framework is mythological. In view of the inextricable confusion of racial and national strains in the ancient near East it would be quite impossible to draw up a simple scheme which would satisfy all scholars; no one system could satisfy all the claims made on the basis of ethnic predominance, ethnographic diffusion, language, physical type, culture, historical tradition. The Table of Nations remains an astonishingly accurate document.
An extensive study of the identification of all the names listed in Genesis 10 will be found in the second book in this trilogy. It may be said in summary that the Semites would include such people as the Jews, some Arabs, a few people in Asia Minor, and more anciently the Assyrians and Babylonians. The Japhethites would include the Indo-European group which, although now strictly denominated by their language, seem always to have preserved a certain racial character in spite of considerable mixture with Semites and Hamites. The Hamites, according to my thesis, include virtually all the people who anciently were the originators and creators of civilization in the Old and New Worlds. Out of Ham have been derived all the so-called coloured races - the 'yellow,' 'red,' 'brown' and 'black' - Mongoloid and Negroid. Their contribution to the civilization of man, insofar as the term has to do with technology, has been unsurpassed. The contribution of Japtheth has been in the realm of thought. The contribution of Shem, both true and false, has been in the realm of religion. These are brash statements as they stand, but the remarkable thing is that they can be substantiated to a degree quite unexpected by most students of history to date.
Corrections, May 10, 1997