Japheth
Japheth (Hebrew: יָפֶת/יֶפֶת Yapheth , Modern Hebrew: Yefet ; Greek: Ἰάφεθ Iapheth ; Latin: Iafeth or Iapetus ; Arabic: يافث) is one of the sons of Noah in the Abrahamic tradition. In Arabic citations, his name is normally given as Yafeth bin Nuh ("Japheth, son of Noah").
In Biblical as well as Quranic tradition, Japheth is considered to be the progenitor of European, and some Asian, peoples. In medieval Europe various nations and ethnicities were given genealogies tracing back to Japheth and his descendants. Religious syncretists later adopted the euhermistic argument that Japheth's memory was distorted into mythical figures such as Iapetus and Neptune.
Order of birth
Genesis 10:21 refers to relative ages of Japheth and his brother Shem, but with sufficient ambiguity to have given rise to different translations. The verse is translated in the King James Version as follows, "Unto Shem also, the father of all the children of Eber, the brother of Japheth the elder, even to him were children born". However, the Revised Standard Version reads, "To Shem also, the father of all the children of Eber, the elder brother of Japheth, children were born." The differing interpretations depend on whether the Hebrew word ha-gadol ("the elder") is taken as grammatically referring to Japheth, or Shem. Further uncertainty about the birth-order is suggested by a passage in Genesis 9:24, which says Noah realized what his "younger" (or "youngest") son had done to him, referring to Ham.
