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Transcript 178E — The Origins of Race
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: Yes. I was wondering where the different races of mankind came from, and if there's any way you could show from Scripture where they came from. It would be very much appreciated, and I'll take my answer on the air.
HC: All right. Fine. Thank you. Good night.
The question is raised: Where did the races come from? Does the Bible give us any clues? We know this from the Bible, that Adam and Eve, our first parents, were created about 13,000 years ago, in the year 11013 BC. At least that's the date I come to when I work out the genealogy and chronology in Genesis 5 and Genesis 10. The world then continued for 6023 years, until the year 4990 BC and multiplied rather slowly. It doesn't speak during this period of various nations. It simply indicates that mankind developed. And I personally believe that it didn't develop into a huge number of people. It might have grown to be a million people or thereabouts.
And then, in the year, 4990 BC, because of the wickedness of the people of that time, God destroyed the world by the flood, which killed off everything with the breath of life, with the exception of those men and animals and birds which were in the ark with Noah and his family. And you can read about this devastating flood in Genesis 6 and Genesis 7 and Genesis 8.
Then, in Genesis 10, we read what is sometimes called the Table of the Nations. On the ark, back there in 4990 BC, which is incidentally about 7000 years ago, there were four men and four women. There was Noah and his wife, there was Noah's son Shem and his wife, Noah's son Ham and his wife, and Noah's son Japheth and his wife. And these were all the children that Noah ever received, according to the Bible.
Now therefore Shem, Ham and Japheth became the progenitors of the whole human race as we know it today. Now in verse 2 of Genesis 10, we read of the sons of Japheth, Gomer (and the character of that word seems to suggest Germany, maybe), Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech and Tiras, the sons of Gomer, Ashkenaz, Riphath and Togarmah, the sons of Javan, Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim and Dodanim.
Now some of these words sound a little bit familiar. Tarshish was a city, eventually, that was located up in the northern area of Palestine, along the seacoast. Kittim refers probably to Cyprus. In other words, that's an island out in the Mediterranean Sea, moving out toward the Roman Empire, you see. And so it says, "From these the coastland peoples spread. These are the sons of Japheth in their lands, these with their own languages, by their families and in their nations."
And so the best we can do is to suggest that the European nations, essentially, came from the line of Japheth. We don't have any more information than that. "Then the sons of Ham; Cush, Egypt, Phut and Canaan. The sons of Cush; Seba, Havilah, Sabath, Raamah and Sabtecha, the sons of Raamah; Sheba and Dedan. Cush became the father of Nimrod. He was the first on the earth to be a mighty man. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord. Therefore it is said, Like Nimrod, the mighty hunter before the Lord." And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech and Accad, all of them in the land of Shinar. Out of that land he went into Assyria, and built Nineveh, Rehoboth and Calah, and Resen between Nineveh and Calah: that is the great city. Egypt became the father of Ludim and Anamim, Lehabim and Naphtuhim, and Pathrusim, Casluhim." You know, I didn't learn these words early enough. If I had lived about five or six thousand years ago, I could probably pronounce these.
But when we study the sons of Ham, we find that the Egyptians, the Assyrians. the Ninevites, Egypt, are all under the lineage of Ham. They all come from him. But again, we don't get any more information concerning how the nations were finally formed. God doesn't give us any insights as to why there are different skin colors, or precisely where the Chinese came from, or whatever. We can only get this general idea, particularly from the sons of Ham, from whom we get some very specific ideas.
And then Shem, we read about him that he became the father of "Ellam, Asshur, Arphaxad, Lud and Aram. And the children of Aram; Uz, Hul, Gether and Mash." And so on. And the one fact we do get from the sons of Shem is that Abraham, who became the beginning of the nation of Israel, came from Shem.
Now we do know this, that while the Flood occurred in 4990 BC, and Shem, Ham and Japheth, the sons of Noah, became the progenitors of the human race, about 3100 BC, God confused the languages. The people, as they multiplied, began to congregate in the plains of Sumar, or the plains of Shinar, or the fertile crescent in the area of Assyria and Babylon. And except for nomads that had gone off into various parts of the continent that existed in that day, most of the people were very gregarious, and they stayed together in the fertile crescent, in the area of Babylon.
And so around the year 3100 God confused the languages, and also separated the continents, so that it was divided into the continents that we have today. Perhaps at the time that He confused the languages He also may have begun a change in skin color But that's pure speculation. All we know is that beginning around 3100 BC, we have the different nations developing in earnest, so that they were kept apart by vast bodies of water, and also they were kept apart by differences in language.
Well, there's just a thumbnail sketch of what the Bible teaches about the table of nations.