Japheth and Iapetos

 

 

 Part One:

Hesiod and Book of Genesis

 

 

 

“Neither has a speaking part, both serving primarily as genealogical agents,

sons of parents who are more significant, who themselves marry and have sons”.

 

Bruce Louden

 

 

 

The biblical patriarch, Japheth, is often considered to have been picked up in Greek myth by the almost identically named Iapetos, and also in Hindu myth by Pra-japati, thought to have the meaning, “Father Japheth”.

 

Here Bruce Louden, in his article “Hesiod and Genesis: Iapetos and Japheth”, draws some connections between the biblical and Greek versions. He takes the standard line of pagan precedence over the Hebrew (biblical) account: “Japheth … may well derive from Hesiod’s Iapetos”: http://apaclassics.org/index.php/annual_meeting/143rd_annual_meeting_abstracts/

 

Each foundational for their respective cultures, each a combination of several of the same genres of myth, Hesiod and Genesis overlap in ways that remain under-analyzed. The tradition preserved at Gen 6:2 and 4, in which “the sons of the gods” (plural in the original, often edited out of translations) mate with mortal women and give birth to a race of heroes, is unexpectedly close to Hesiod’s Bronze Age (Works 155-69; cf. Pindar Olympian 9, 53-56).

Scholars have long recognized a number of Near Eastern elements in Hesiod (M. L. West: 1966, 1997), while more recent analyses (e.g., López-Ruiz: 2010) suggest Northwest Semitic ties in particular (Ugaritic, Syrian / Phoenician), the same context out of which Genesis is thought to have evolved (the Biblical Canaanites = Phoenicians). But Genesis also includes specific allusions to Greek culture (Javan) in the aftermath of the Flood myth. Noah's son Japheth, father of Javan, appears to be the same name as the Hesiodic Iapetos, a specific intersection of both traditions.

 

Neither has a speaking part, both serving primarily as genealogical agents, sons of parents who are more significant, who themselves marry and have sons. Genesis 9:27 uses wordplay on Japheth's name, "May God extend Japheth's boundaries," where "extend," is the Hebrew, yapht, much like Hesiod on the name Titans (Theog. 207-9: Τιτῆνας . . . τιταίνοντας). Both characters are linked to their respective Flood myths (Iapetos is grandfather of Deukalion). Pindar, at a fairly early date (468), knows a complete version of the myth (Olympian 9, 40-56), and makes prominent mention of Iapetos. In Hesiod Iapetos’ brother Kronos castrates his father Ouranos. Japheth’s brother Ham sees Noah naked, passed out from drinking, and tells Shem and Japheth. When Noah wakes he curses Ham, but directs the curse at his son Canaan (9:20-27). ….

 

… many assume Genesis 9:20-7 is an abbreviated excerpt from a longer tale. The Talmud (b. Sanhedrin 70a) suggests that Ham originally committed a much greater offence, that he castrated Noah, or sexually abused him (on the basis of parallels between “and he saw” also at Gen 34:2 of Shechem violating Dinah; if correct, Ham would offer unexpected parallels with the Derveni Papyrus, López-Ruiz: 139-42).

 

Damien Mackey’s comment: For the true nature of Ham’s action and sin, I would agree entirely with the following version, except to suggest the alternative possibility that Noah’s wife, with whom Ham had sex, may not necessarily have been Ham’s own biological mother:

http://www.genesisandgenetics.org/2016/04/21/noahs-wife/

 

Noah planted a vineyard and got drunk. Then, Ham, Noah’s son, committed some act that resulted in a curse placed on Canaan. These happenings have been heavily debated by theologians: some say Ham saw that Noah was naked; some say Ham committed a homosexual act with Noah, and some say it is and will remain an unsolved mystery, but there is another possibility that we have accepted. We have concluded that Ham went into the tent and had sex with his mother; this union produced Canaan. When Noah woke up, he cursed Canaan, Ham’s unborn son. Noah didn’t curse himself, nor did he curse Ham, but he cursed Canaan and gave him the name which means “humiliated.” This is the only scenario that makes sense and here are our reasons for promoting this view:

 

1. The term saw the “nakedness of his father” (Genesis 9:22) is the same term as used in the Levitical law when dealing with incest (e.g. Leviticus 20:11 “And the man that lieth with his father’s wife hath uncovered his father’s nakedness:” – KJV). This clearly means having sexual relations.

 

(b)  Noah knew that the result of this union would upset the balance between good and evil (1 John 3:12, Genesis 4:25).

[End of quote]

 

Bruce Louden continues:

 

In Hesiod Kronos castrates his father, but Iapetos has also committed unspecified offences for which he is punished in Tartaros (Iliad 8.479; cf. his name’s likely derivation from ἰάπτω [Chantraine]). Iapetos and his wife Klymene produce four sons (Theog. 507-616), three of whom are severely punished: Atlas, Menoitios (who seems most like Ham: Theog. 514-16), and Prometheus, referred to eight times as "Son of Iapetos." Not only are there multiple points of contact with Hesiod, but after the flood Japheth becomes the father of Javan (10:2), the same eponym as the Greek Ion (from *Ἰαϝων). ….

 

Based on the congruence of these motifs, the characters' occurrence at similar stages of larger creation myths, and Japheth's specific connection to Greek culture (as father of Javan) we might best see this part of Genesis as having evolved in a dialogic relation with Hesiod’s account (cf. Louden 2011, which argues that parts of Genesis evolved in a dialogic relation with The Odyssey).

 

Damien Mackey’s comment: The Odyssey, I think, would be later, much of it being based upon the books of Tobit and Job. See e.g. my article:

 

Similarities to The Odyssey of the Books of Job and Tobit

 

https://www.academia.edu/8914220/Similarities_to_The_Odyssey_of_the_Books_of_Job_and_Tobit

 

Bruce Louden concludes:

 

There is no evidence external to the Bible for the names of Noah’s sons (Carr 162), and recent scholarship has moved the dates up for Genesis considerably (Carr passim). Elsewhere the Bible several times transposes other cultures’ divine names to human characters (Nimrod: Ninurta; Esther: Ishtar, Mordecai: Marduk). Though the resultant versions lack an exact match between the two characters (they do not occupy the same sequential position in their Flood myths), Japheth, who is absent from all other Near Eastern accounts, may well derive from Hesiod’s Iapetos.

 

Bibliography

 

•Carr, David M. 1996. Reading the Fractures of Genesis. Westminster.

•López-Ruiz, Carolina. 2010. When the Gods Were Born: Greek Cosmogonies and the Near East. Harvard University Press.

•Louden, B. 2011. Homer’s Odyssey and the Near East. Cambridge University Press.

•Wadjenbaum, Philippe. 2011. Argonauts of the Desert: Structural Analysis of the Hebrew Bible. Equinox.

•West, M. L. 1966. Hesiod: Theogony. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

•West, M. L. 1997. The East Face of Helicon: West Asiatic Elements in Greek Poetry and Myth. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

 

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Part Two: Japheth and Prajapti

 

“In the Indian account of the Flood, "Noah" is known as Satyaurata,

who had three sons, the eldest of whom was named Jyapeti.

The other two were called Sharma and C'harma (Shem and Ham?)”.

Emmanuel Enid

 

Bill Cooper has written as follows about the biblical Japheth, in “The Early History of Man: Part One. The Table of Nations”: https://creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j04_1/j04_1_67-92.pdf

 

(1) Japheth

 

Literally the progenitor of many nations — all the Indo-European peoples, in fact — it would be surprising indeed if his name had gone unremembered among them. As it is, we find that the early Greeks worshipped him as IAPETOS, or IAPETUS, whom they regarded as the son of heaven and earth, and the father of many nations. Likewise, in the ancient Sanskrit vedas of India, he is remembered as PRA-JAPATI, the sun and ostensible Lord of Creation.

His name was further corrupted and assimilated into the Roman pantheon as IUPATER, which eventually became that of Jupiter. None of these names are recognised as being of Greek, Indian or Latin origin; but are rather mere corruptions of the Hebrew name of Japheth. Similarly, the early Saxon races perpetuated his name as Sceaf, (pr. ‘sheef’ or ‘shaif’), and recorded his name in their early genealogies as the son of Noah, the forebear of their various peoples.

 

Again, we read at: http://emmanuelenid.org/index.php/about/58-sermon-notes-archive/bible-study-notes/we-are-family/895-the-descendants-of-japheth-indo-europeans-and-western-civilization of Japheth’s presumed wide-ranging Indo-European influence:

Japheth is the Father of the Europeans and the Indians (of India, not America)

 

To begin with, it is well known that Japheth's name has been preserved in both branches of the Aryan family, which very early split into two major divisions and settled in Europe and India. The Greeks, for example, trace themselves back to Japetos. In Aristophanes' The Clouds, Japetos is referred to as one of the Titans and the father of Atlas. Japetos was considered by the Greeks not merely as their own ancestor but the father of the human race. According to their tradition, Ouranos and Gaia (i.e., Heaven and Earth) had six sons and six daughters, but of this family only one - Japetos by name - had a human progeny. He married Clymene, a daughter of Okeanos, who bore him Prometheus and three other sons. Prometheus begat Deukalion who is, in effect, the "Noah" of the Greeks, and Deukalion begat Hellen who was the reputed father of the Hellenes or Greeks. If we proceed a little further, we find that Hellen himself had a grandson named Ion; and in Homer's poetry the Greeks were known as Ionians.

 

Meanwhile, the Indian branch of this Aryan family also traced themselves back to the same man. In the Indian account of the Flood, "Noah" is known as Satyaurata, who had three sons, the eldest of whom was named Jyapeti. The other two were called Sharma and C'harma (Shem and Ham?). To the first he allotted all the regions north of the Himalayas and to Sharma he gave the country to the south. But he cursed C'harma, because when the old monarch was accidentally inebriated with strong liquor made from fermented rice, C'harma had laughed at him. In primitive Aryan speech the title Djapatischta means "chief of the race," a title which looks like a corruption of the original form of the name "Japheth." We know little about Japheth from Scripture, except that in Hebrew his name means “fair.” We know much more about his seven sons (see Appendix 11).

 

Out of the spreading of Japheth’s seven sons, there emerges a reasonably clear picture in which a single family beginning with Japheth multiplied in the course of time and peopled the northern shore of the Mediterranean, the whole of Europe, the British Isles and Scandinavia, and the larger part of Russia.

 

The same family settled India, displacing a prior settlement of Hamites who had established themselves in the Indus Valley. Isolated groups of this same people seem to have wandered further afield towards the East, contributing to small pockets of Japhethites which, in course of time, were almost, if not wholly, swallowed up by the Hamites. It is possible that some of them contributed characteristics found in the people of Polynesia, and it is conceivable that in the Ainu of northern Japan there is a remnant of Japhethites.

 

Noah had said that God would enlarge Japheth (Genesis 9:27). It seems that this enlargement began very early in Japheth's history, but it has been a continuing process and occurring in every part of the world, with the exception of the Far East. The children of Japheth have tended to spread and multiply at the expense of the Shem and Ham families. This enlargement did not mean that Japhethites were the first to migrate far and wide, for wherever they have spread, whether in prehistoric or historic times, they have been preceded by even earlier settlers whose racial origin was not Indo-European. This pattern of settlement of the habitable areas of the world has had a profound significance in the development of civilization, a significance which is considered in some detail in another Doorway Paper.

 

It has been established by many lines of evidence that the actual names provided in Genesis 10:1-5 were indeed those of real people, whose families carried with them recognizably clear recollections (though often in corrupted form), of their respective forebears, so that they have survived to the present day, still bearing the kind of relationships that are implied in this ancient Table of Nations. And even the patriarchal name is often unmistakably preserved!