Japheth ( Yép̄eṯ, in pausa Yā́p̄eṯ; '; ; ') was one of the three sons of Noah in the Book of Genesis. In the biblical narrative he plays a role in the story of Noah's drunkenness and the curse of Ham, and subsequently in the Table of Nations, he is named as the ancestor of the peoples of the Aegean Sea, Anatolia, Caucasus, Greece, and elsewhere in Eurasia.
In medieval and early modern European tradition he was considered to be the progenitor of the European peoples.
Etymology
The meaning of the name Japheth (: y-p-t) is disputed. There are two possible sources to the meaning of the name:
- From the Aramaic root (p-t-h), meaning "to extend". In this case, the name would mean "may He extend", according to the interpretation of Rashi. Genesis 9:24 calls Ham the youngest, and Genesis 10:21 refers ambiguously to Shem as "brother of Japheth the elder", which could mean that either is the eldest. Most modern writers accept Shem–Ham–Japheth as reflecting their birth order, but this is not always the case: Moses and Rachel also appear at the head of such lists despite explicit descriptions of them as younger siblings. However, Japheth is considered to have been the eldest son of Noah in Rabbinic literature. Chapter 10 of Genesis, the Table of Nations, describes how the earth was populated by the sons of Noah following the Flood, beginning with the descendants of Japheth:
Ethnogenetic interpretations
thumb|250px|right|A map showing the distribution of the [[Sons of Noah|descendants of Noah according to the Table of Nations. The descendants of Japheth are shown in red.]]
Japheth (in Hebrew: Yā́p̄eṯ or Yép̄eṯ) may be a transliteration of the Greek Iapetos, the ancestor of the Hellenic peoples. His sons and grandsons associate him with the geographic area comprising the Aegean Sea, Greece, the Caucasus, and Anatolia: Ionia/Javan, Rhodes/Rodanim, Cyprus/Kittim, and other places in the Eastern Mediterranean region. The point of the "blessing of Japheth" seems to be that Japheth (a Greek-descended people) and Shem (the Israelites) would rule jointly over Canaan (Palestine).
From the 19th century until the late 20th century, it was usual to see Japheth as a reference to the Philistines, who shared dominion over Canaan during the pre-monarchic and early monarchic period of Israel and Judah. This view accorded with the understanding of the origin of the Book of Genesis, which was seen as having been composed in stages beginning with the time of King Solomon, when the Philistines still existed (they vanished from history after the Assyrian conquest of Canaan). However, Genesis 10:14 identifies their ancestor as Ham rather than Japheth.
Biblical descendants
thumb|Geographic identifications for the sons of Noah ([[Flavius Josephus, ); Japheth's sons shown in red.]]
In the Hebrew Bible, Japheth is ascribed seven sons: Gomer, Magog, Tiras, Javan, Meshech, Tubal, and Madai. According to the Roman–Jewish historian Flavius Josephus in Antiquities of the Jews, I.VI.122 (Whiston):
The Sefer haYashar ("Book of Jasher"), written by Talmudic rabbis in the 17th century, attributed some new names for Japheth's grandchildren which are not found in the Hebrew Bible, and provided a much more detailed genealogy. In the Jewish tradition, Abraham's wife Keturah is sometimes considered a descendant of Japheth.
Europeans
thumb|right|Shem, Ham, and Japheth, painting by [[James Tissot (between 1896 and 1902). Jewish Museum (Manhattan, New York). Japheth is on the right with Eurasian features.]]
thumb|230px|right|This [[T and O map, from the first printed version of Isidore's Etymologiae (Augsburg 1472), identifies the three known continents (Asia, Europe, and Africa) as respectively populated by descendants of Sem (Shem), Iafeth (Japheth), and Cham (Ham).]]
In the 7th century AD, Hispano–Roman archbishop and scholar Isidore of Seville wrote his noted encyclopedic-historical treatise titled Etymologiae, in which he traces the origins of most of the European peoples back to Japheth. Scholars in almost every European nation continued to repeat and develop Isidore of Seville's assertion of descent from Noah through Japheth into the 19th century.
William Shakespeare's play Henry IV, Part II contains a wry comment about people who claim to be related to royal families. Prince Hal notes of such people,
The Georgian historian and linguist Ivane Javakhishvili associated Japheth's sons with certain ancient tribes, called Tubals (Tabals, in Greek: Tibarenoi) and Meshechs (Meshekhs/Mosokhs, in Greek: Moschoi), who claimed to represent non-Indo-European and non-Semitic, possibly "Proto-Iberian" tribes that inhabited Anatolia during the 3rd-1st millennia BC. Muslim exegesis of the Quran, however, names all of Noah's sons, and these include Japheth. In identifying Japheth's descendants, Muslim exegesis mostly agrees with the Biblical tradition.
In the Islamic tradition, he is usually regarded as the ancestor of the Gog and Magog tribes. Islamic tradition also tends to identify the descendants of Japheth as including the Turks, Khazars, Chinese, Mongols, and Slavs. According to Abū'l-Ghāzī who wrote the 17th-century ethnographic treatise Shajara-i Tarākima ("Genealogy of the Turkmen"), the descendants of Ham went to Africa, Shem to Iran, and Japheth went to the banks of the Itil and Yaik rivers, and had eight sons named Turk, Khazar, Saqlab, Rus, Ming, Chin, Kemeri, and Tarikh. As Japheth was dying he established Turk, his firstborn son, as his successor.
According to the 18th-century Hui Muslim writer Liu Zhi, after Noah's flood, Japheth inherited China as the eastern portion of the Earth, while Shem inherited Arabia as the middle portion, and Ham inherited Europe as the western portion.