Generations of Noah Noah's three sons Shem, Ham and Japheth, from which were derived Semites, Hamites and Japhetites, certain of Noah's grandsons including Elam, Ashur, Aram, Cush, and Canaan, from which the Elamites, Assyrians, Arameans, Cushites and Canaanites, as well as further descendants including Eber (from which "Hebrews"), the hunter-king Nimrod, the Philistines and the sons of Canaan including Heth, Jebus and Amorus, from which Hittites, Jebusites and Amorites. As Christianity took over the Roman world, it adopted the idea that all the world's peoples were descended from Noah. But the tradition of Hellenistic Jewish identifications of the ancestry of various peoples, which
Tower of Babel Tower of Babel account, in , it is said that everyone on Earth spoke the same language, but this is inconsistent with the Biblical description of the post-Noahic world described in , where it is said that the descendants of Shem, Ham, and Japheth gave rise to different nations, each with their own language. Some explain this discrepancy by saying that the order of the narrative is not the same as the order of events. There have also been a number of traditions around the world that describe a divine confusion of the one original language into several, albeit without