Recent Articles



































Japheth



         


Japheth (יפת "Enlarge", Standard Hebrew Yéfet / Yáfet, Tiberian Hebrew Yép̄eṯ / Yāp̄eṯ) is one of the sons of Noah in the Bible. He is most popularly regarded as the youngest son, though some traditions regard him as the eldest son.

In Arabic citations his name is normally given as Yafet Ibn Nuh (Japhet son of Noah).

With the adoption of the Bible in Europe, Japheth was taken by European Christians to be the father of the Europeans. Hence the term 'Japhetic' was formerly used to refer to European peoples. The term was also applied by pre-Darwinian writers to what later became known as the Indo-European language group.

Other cultures mention Japheth - the pagan Greeks knew him as 'Iapetos', the Indian Sanskrit has 'Pra-Japati', and the Romans 'Iu-Pater' or 'Father Jove', which became 'Jupiter'.

He is ascribed seven sons Gomer, Magog, Tiras, Javan, Meshech, Tubal & Madai.

Tubals and Meshechs were ancient, non-Semitic and non-IndoEuropean, indigenous tribes of Asia Minor. They were Proto-Iberian tribes.

[Top]

See also





  View Live Article   This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License