Historical race concepts Classical ideas with the notion that humanity as a whole was descended from Shem, Ham and Japheth, the three sons of Noah, producing distinct Semitic (Asiatic), Hamitic (African), and Japhetic (Indo-European) peoples. This theory dates back to the Babylonian "Talmud", which states, "the descendants of Ham are cursed by being black, and [it] depicts Ham as a sinful man and his progeny as degenerates." In the 9th century, Al-Jahiz, an Afro-Arab Islamic philosopher, attempted to explain the origins of different human skin colors, particularly black skin, which he believed to be the result of the environment. He cited a stony
Tower of Babel 70) languages scattered from Babel are the Old Irish poem "Cu cen mathair" by Luccreth moccu Chiara (c. 600); the Irish monastic work "Auraicept na n-Éces"; "History of the Prophets and Kings" by the Persian historian Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari (c. 915); the Anglo-Saxon dialogue "Solomon and Saturn"; the Russian "Primary Chronicle" (c. 1113); the Jewish Kabbalistic work "Bahir" (1174); the "Prose Edda" of Snorri Sturluson (c. 1200); the Syriac "Book of the Bee" (c. 1221); the "Gesta Hunnorum et Hungarorum" (c. 1284; mentions 22 for Shem, 31 for Ham and 17 for Japheth for a total of 70); Villani's