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
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