Japheth Japheth Japheth (, "Yefet"; ""; ), is one of the three sons of Noah in the Book of Genesis, where he plays a role in the story of Noah's drunkenness and the curse of Ham, and subsequently in the Table of Nations as the ancestor of the peoples of the Aegean, Anatolia, and elsewhere. In medieval and early modern European tradition he was considered to be the progenitor of European and, later, East Asian peoples. The meaning of the name Yafet/Yefet (יָפֶת/יֶפֶת) is disputable. There are two possible sources to the meaning of the name. Japheth first appears in the
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