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
Curse of Ham and Phut the Libyans. In medieval Christian exegesis, Ham's sin was regarded as laughter (for mocking his father and doing nothing to rectify his condition). Elsewhere in Medieval Europe, the "Curse of Ham" also became used as a justification for serfdom. Honorius Augustodunensis (c. 1100) was the first recorded to propose a caste system associating Ham with serfdom, writing that serfs were descended from Ham, nobles from Japheth, and free men from Shem. However, he also followed the interpretation of 1 Corinthians 7:21 by Ambrosiaster (late 4th century), which held that as servants in the temporal world, these "Hamites" were