There is a hot, still ongoing discussion about the true background in the various biblical
tables of nations to distinguish the origin of Asian nations. This especially relates to the question from whom of the three sons of Noah they are descending, from Sem, Ham or Japhet? In his paper Paul Phelps argues not
only the Chinese, but all the Asian nations should be regarded as Eastern
Hebrew nations (Paul Phelps), while many like Henry Morris see them clearly as descendants of Ham. He writes about Gen. 9:24:
"Descendants
of Ham included the Egyptians and Sumerians, who founded the first two great
empires of antiquity, as well as other great nations such as the Phoenicians,
Hittites, and Canaanites. The modern African tribes and the Mongol tribes
(including today the Chinese and Japanese), as well as the American Indians and
the South Sea Islanders, are probably dominantly Hamitic in origin."
Regarding Gen. 10:16-18 Morris writes:
The
Biblical mention of a people in the Far East named “Sinim” (Isaiah 49:12), together with references in ancient
secular histories to people in the Far East called “Sinae,” at least suggests
the possibility that some of Sin’s descendants migrated eastward, while others
went south into the land of Canaan. It is significant that the Chinese people
have always been identified by the prefix “Sino-” (e.g., Sino-Japanese War;
Sinology, the study of Chinese history). The name “Sin” is frequently
encountered in Chinese names in the form “Siang” or its equivalent.
The
evidence is tenuous but, of all the names in the Table of Nations, it does seem
that two sons of Canaan, Heth (Hittites = Khittae = Cathay) and Sin (Sinites =
Sinim = China), are the most likely to have become ancestors of the Oriental
peoples. Since it seems reasonable that divine inspiration would include in
such a table information concerning the ancestry of all the major streams of
human development, it is reasonable to conclude that the Mongoloid peoples (and
therefore also the American Indians) have come mostly from the Hamitic line.
30 Ham Nations and their Migration Places |
As interesting and
biblical this sounds, this is not what other Asians more familiar with local
Oriental traditions are willing to agree. One of them is Paul Phelps. Instead
of summarizing what seems ("t does not seem") the author of
the newly published book "Oriental Origins in the Bible" demonstrates
how the Hebrew text itself hints into another direction and says:
[All men in fact belong to one family because Adam and Eve
were parents
of all (Gen. 3:20,) but there are three genealogies after the
Flood; Gen. 9:18-19,
The sons of Noah who went out of the ark
were Shem, Ham, and Japheth... These three were the sons of Noah; and from these the whole earth was peopled.
Bible scholars
have traced Ham’s descendants to Africa, the Mediterranean,
the Indian Ocean,
and into the South Pacific regions. The name Ham means hot
and
indicates that Ham’s people went into hot climates. Japheth’s descendants
are traceable to the Aryan people of Europe, central Asia, Iran and north
India.
The name Japheth means enlarged (expanded in size) which
reveals the nature
of the Japhetic people, and is also prophetic of their
world-wide expansion.
Bible scholarship tradition has the view that the
descendants of Shem settled
only in western Asia, mostly Arabs and Jews.
But this conclusion does not take
east Asia into account (half of humanity)
and gives only a small portion to Shem.
But that cannot be correct
because Shem was given the greatest honour of all. He also said,
“Blessed by the LORD my God be Shem...” (Gen. 9:26). According to
the Biblical record, Shem is the original forefather of both the
West
Asian people and East Asian people. In the Genesis account,
the ancestry
of all the East Asian people can be traced to Shem. Shem
means honourable name, which fits well with East Asian cultural
values.
In the Hebrew Bible, God is referred to as ‘The Honourable Name’
(HA-SHÈM),
thus associating God with the people of Shem. In Genesis
10:21, Shem is called
“the father of all the children of Eber,” meaning the
Hebrew people. The word
Hebrew means ‘of Eber,’ or
‘descended from Eber.’ Gen. 10:25,
To Eber were born two sons: the name of
one was Peleg,
for in his days the earth was divided,
and his brother’s name was Joktan.
The Hebrew race
has therefore descended from Eber in two branches: Peleg
and Joktan. The
name Peleg means division, (indicating the division of mankind
in
Babylon, Gen. 11:7-9), and the name Joktan means diminished, (indicating
the
diminished lifespan of mankind at that time).
Joktan’s family of
thirteen sons is the largest family of early Bible times. Only
Joktan’s
first-generation lineage was recorded; Gen. 10:26-29; I Chron. 1:19-23.
(Even this much is unusual because Joktan’s descendants are not mentioned in
later Bible history.) All later Bible history is based on Peleg’s
lineage (Gen. 11)
so readers have traditionally thought Peleg’s descendants
are the only existing
Hebrews. Peleg’s lineage has more visibility in
the Bible because it led up to
Abraham—and God took Abraham’s people to lead
the Bible narrative. But the
descendants of Joktan made another even
larger branch of Hebrews. The total
disappearance of Joktan’s
people from the Bible narrative means that his family
left west Asia entirely
and migrated to another land far away.
On Josephus' table of nations ( 1st A.D.), Joktam is placed in Pakistan |
While his arguments for this view could be supported
from current research in view of at least some Han-Chinese groups and several
people groups in the Indian subcontinent (some claim the Brahmans of India are
descendants of Abraham), it is difficult to apply this view for most of the more
than 700 non-Chinese people nations in China. –Alexander Zephyr uses Ps. 83 to remind that conclusions done through pure grammatical and cultural comparison are not sufficient for a sound result. Ps. 83 clearly states shows what happened with the descendants of Peleg, which would include Joktams people in the Middle East and refuses to accept Phelps and Kwoks pure speculation regarding the Joktam migration to the East. -Further research must be done. In order to better
reach those people nations for Christ and explain what their ancestors once
knew from their creator research regarding the Ham AND Sem nations in Asia need to be reflected.
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