Noah about to be baptised. In medieval Christianity, Noah's three sons were generally considered as the founders of the populations of the three known continents, Japheth/Europe, Shem/Asia, and Ham/Africa, although a rarer variation held that they represented the three classes of medieval society – the priests (Shem), the warriors (Japheth), and the peasants (Ham). In medieval Christian thought, Ham was considered to be the ancestor of the people of black Africa. So, in racialist arguments, the curse of Ham became a justification for the slavery of the black races. Isaac Newton, in his religious works on the development of religion, wrote
Shem 10:21 refers to relative ages of Shem and his brother Japheth, but with sufficient ambiguity to have yielded different English translations. The verse is translated in the King James Version as: "Unto Shem also, the father of all the children of Eber, the brother of Japheth the elder, even to him were children born." However, the New American Standard Bible gives: "Also to Shem, the father of all the children of Eber, and the older brother of Japheth, children were born". According to Genesis 10:22-31 ("Jewish Publication Society Translation" of 1917): Genesis 11:10 records that Shem was 100 years old