Generations of Noah Nations is substantially the same as that in the Hebrew text, but with the following differences: In the First Epistle of Peter, 3:20, Saint Peter noted that eight righteous persons were saved from the Great Flood, referring to Noah's family members. The Genesis flood narrative tells how Noah and his three sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, together with their wives, were saved from the Deluge to repopulate the Earth. The 1st-century Jewish-Roman historian Josephus, in "Antiquities of the Jews" Book 1, chapter 6, was among the first of many who attempted to assign known ethnicities to some of the names
Japheth on his death (the descendants of Shem and Ham respectively correspond to the other two, those of the Ptolemies and Seleucids). As the point of the "blessing of Japheth" seems to be that Japheth (a Greek-descended people) and Shem (the Israelites) would rule jointly over Canaan (Palestine). From the 19th century until the late 20th century it was usual to see Japheth as a reference to the Philistines, who shared dominion over Canaan during the pre-monarchic and early monarchic period of Israel's history. This view accorded with earlier understanding of the origin of the Book of Genesis, which was seen