Who is Japheth?
Finalizing our Search for the First Son on the Table of Nations
As we have seen over the course of these chapters, the complex ethnic identity of Japheth seems to fit rather nicely within the broader Indo-European culture. Every single child and grandchild of Japheth can be accounted for by the Indo-Europeans with striking accuracy. While there are certainly tribes excluded from the Table of Nation, especially ones that will go on to form major empires, ultimately the Table accounts for every single major Indo-European Kingdom, and cultural confederation.
Japheth’s identification would therefore fit solidly as the “father of Indo-Europeans” which tends to be viewed as the broader “Scythian” culture. Scythians, as we have seen, were not necessarily a single ethnicity, or tribe, but rather a complex grouping of various identities, often time splintering off from the broader group. Under this lens we can view Japheth as “Scythians”, and his sons as the wider Indo-European ethnic nations.
More importantly, rather than being a “Scythian”, I would put forward this concept of “founding father” as the real meaning behind “Japheth”. Let us turn once again to etymological clues for hints at pinning down Japheth. In Greek there is a Titan, the children of the Sky god and Mother Earth, named “Iapetos”. In Greek sources this Iapetos is the father of mankind through his four sons and like the Latin word for this god “Dyeus-Pater”, otherwise known as Jupiter his name likely means “O Father Sky-god” certifying his role in Greek mythology. This Jupiter, or Iapetos, is almost certainly the same as the Indo-European peoples, the Sanskrit speakers who called their ‘lord of creation of all life’ the term “Pra-Japati”.
Whoever this Japheth really was it is obvious there are multiple shared traditions between all Indo-Europeans related to their father figure, and the genetic evidence seems to support this conclusion. Until now, I have mostly ignored the concept of Haplogroup due to the complicated science, or pseudo-science, necessary to understand the field. However it is an incredibly useful concept when determining patrilineal descent related to language families as theorized by the “Father Tongue” hypothesis.1 The hypothesis is quite straightforward, as it merely proposes humans tend to speak the language of their father, rather than mother. This means that haplogroup distribution will tend to follow language families, and show close correlation with migration patterns. While seemingly simple, this concept has extremely far reaching implications and may help explain the “fathers” of nations; and why a people group is so often associated with a new language.
We must turn to a few examples in order to see how this effect clearly works. One of the more simple Haplogroups is N, who represent the majority of “Siberian” peoples including the previously mentioned Finns, Sami, Aestii (Balts/Estonians), Ugrics (Hungarians) as well as the Samoyed and Yukaghir people. All of these groups - with the exception of the Hungarians who represent a dominant male migration over the steppe - settled in the Siberian regions, with some of their genetic drift spilling over into the peoples and nations they border. In these two overlapping maps it is quite evident how this Father Tongue hypothesis would work.
While one might not assume such a shift could be possible from a single founder, the ancient world was sadly quite brutal with tribal warfare mostly ending up with the male members of one tribe dead, and the males of another significantly reduced. This would leave quite a large number of women for the remaining men, and based on the ancestral laws of all cultures regarding brothers marrying the wives of their brothers if they die, this would indicate a cultural importance for this way of life. Research has shown that it takes as little as 10-20% of a population to trigger a genetic shift to the male population. This was not always the case, as in the example of Etruscans or Basques who retained a language through their female line, but these outliers are quite easily explained through alternative methods.
The way we understand almost all successful pre-modern cultures is in a highly stratified, patriarchal society where an extremely elite group of males controlled the rest of the tribal politics. The women of the captured and defeated tribes would almost certainly be distributed to these leaders, heavily leaning towards the Y-Chromosomal male genetics of the conquering tribe. Again, this effect does not describe mtDNA (mitochondrial), which represents the female side of the human story. Given that even in the Torah we know hardly anything about the female line, it would be impossible to make assumptions.
When comparing maps of R1b and R1a distribution we see there is a split between the West and East, likely along lines of Corded Ware/Bell Beaker, and the Yamnaya who still remain in the heartland continually forming the R1a lineage. Either way, all of these groups are part of the same R Haplogroup, which when overlaid with a map of Indo-European languages it’s quite obvious that this group represents their lineage. Of course a modern map and distribution cannot account for various migration patterns, but tends to line up perfectly with the spread of this group. The tricky piece of the puzzle is seeing where this R group split off from, and how Japheth may be related to Ham and Shem, something that will develop in the following sections.
Chart of Japheth’s Children
Over the coming sections we will fill in the table of nations, and in later centuries we will be able to correlate different peoples having descended from these various groups.
*Egyptian **Persian ***Babylonian ****Indo-European/Scythian *****Greek
This is the final post on Japheth, and wraps up the entire work regarding his genealogy. Rather than dive right into Ham next week, I will have a short post describing the publishing of my book which I recently self published. The content is essentially identical to this Substack, but has some mild formatting differences making it an easier read overall. Depending on the individual one might prefer the Substack, or the physical book. Ham is nearly fully written, excluding the section on Nimrod, so there will be no delay in the forthcoming posts.
I once again want to thank readers for coming this far and sincerely hope everyone could gain a deeper insight for Torah. Any questions can be sent directly to my email, or left in the comments, and I would be happy to discuss. Don’t be afraid to contact me, no matter how rediculous, as questions are the bedrock of Jewish study.
“The foundation of saintliness and the root of perfection in the service of God lies in a man's coming to see clearly and to recognize as a truth the nature of his duty in the world and the end towards which he should direct his vision and his aspiration in all of his labors all the days of his life.”
-Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, Meshillat Yesharim (The Path of the Just)
As previously mentioned, this entire work is available in paperback, hardcover, and eBook. Table of Nations: Japheth
Poloni, Estela S; Semino O, Passarino G, Santachiara-Benerecetti AS, Dupanloup I, Langaney A, Excoffier L (1997). "Human genetic affinities for Y-chromosome p49a,f/TaqI haplotypes show strong correspondence with linguistics". American Journal of Human Genetics. 61 (5): 1015–1035.
Great book. Excellent research! Learned a lot