Table of Nations (Continued)
HOW JOSEPHUS COMPARES
The differences in the identification of nations between Josephus, The Antiquities of the Jews I, vi, and this summary (last issue) can be seen in the attached table and may be commented on as follows:
The association of Gomer with the Crimea, etc., seems too strong to ignore; so also are the mines of Cornwall and Spain too evidently associated with the Celts and Tarshish. Josephus must surely be mistaken here.
Regarding Aschanaz, Josephus’Rheginians remain to be identified, although they appear in a sequence of names in modern Turkey. If Rhegium in southernmost Italy be intended, Josephus is surely mistaken.
For Riphath, Thrugramma (Togarmah), and Tharsus, it is possible Josephus might be giving a smaller colony closer to Israel instead of the main tribe. For Elisa, josephus could be right, because much of southern Italy was originally an Aeolian colony.
For some reason (possibly scribal?) Josephus omits Dodanim but adds their area of settlement to Cethimus (Kittim).
Elam constituted the native population of the region later taken over by the Persians (who spoke an Indo-Iranian language); ethnic descent is improbable.
The location of Arphaxad given in this summary is based on the towns of Harran and Sürüc (Serug), the River Khabur (Heber?), and other Hebrew names identifiable nearby or in the Ebla inscriptions. But Josephus could also be right, with the Chaldeans having originally come from the upper Tigris, west of Assyria.
That some of Joktan’s offshoots may have settled a river valley in India is possible, but evidence is still meager.
LARGE POPULATIONS OF THE ANCIENT EAST
There remain some major ethnic groups not represented in the summary above, notably those of greater India and China. Also those of S.E. Asia (Viet Nam to Singapore), Indonesia, and Japan. The likely candidates for such colonization and settlement are few and would have had either sea or land routes eastward. Elam, Cush, and Magog are the obvious candidates for early settlement. Joktan and Togannah might have influenced later settlement. Chaldea may have had sea access but is better known as a center of learning.
The name Elam (or Hebrew “olam”) means “to a vanishing point,” as two parallel lines merging on the horizon (see table). The meaning makes Elam the likeliest candidate for the earliest settlement of the Orient, i.e., the Hwang Ho River valley in China. If so, their neighbors to the north and west would have been Magog (Hsiung Nu, or Huns) and Togarmah (Yüeh Chih, or Turks) respectively. Southern China was inhabited by other Yiieh, or non-Chinese tribes (especially Chinese-like Thais).
The main early population of India was Cushite, the Dravidians (modern Tamil), settling the Indus River valley. Josephus says Joktanites [maybe Ophir?] were there in the upper valley along the Cophen [Kabul] River. When an Aryan (probably Magog) tribe from the northwest came conquering, the Cushites were driven to the southeastern part of India (ca. BC1500). Afterwards the Aryans, or modern Hindhi, spread downstream throughout the Ganges River valley also. The late Sundar Raj Gilbert has noted that 10% of all Hebrew Old Testament words are the same or similar to corresponding Tamil words; world communication would appear to have been extensive in the BC millennia. Tropical and monsoon climates may account for South and East India and Indo-China not being settled as early as the Indus River valley and China.
S.E. Asia represents a blend of Chinese-like and Indian tribes, with the Indo-Aryans and Dravidians (Cushites) predominating today only in parts of Burma. The Malay-Polynesians are commonly thought of as a homogeneously mixed seafaring people who ranged from Madagascar to the Pacific Islands, including Indonesia; the Ainu of northern Japan may have come from them. Otherwise, the Japanese are more closely related to Korean and Chinese.
ADDENDUM-FURTHER ABOUT GOG
Contemporary with Genesis was the Aryan language of the northern tribes, which among Saka peoples gave way in the first millennium B.C. to Old Persian (sometimes called Persic) and Avestani, which gave way to Sogdian (Saka-Ta, or Ghogh-ta) and Sakian (Saka), from which modern Ossetic is derived (spoken in the central Caucasus around Ordzhonikidzevskaya and Tskhinvali). McClintock and Strong give Old Persian koh and Ossetic ghogh as the word for mountain, and Koh-Kaf as the derivation of Caucasus. Other derivative words for mountain include hegy (Hungarian), dag (Turkish), dake (North Japanese), tagh (Turkic), ghat (South India), tang or gangri (Tibetan), and shan (Chinese). Though far ranging, all could reasonably have derived from ghogh or syaka.
The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edn., Massagetae, suggests masyaka for great Saka (Avestani) and t’ä for horde (Ossetic). The word ma(s) conveys the meaning of region, or great (widespread). From Smith’s Bible Dictionary (ed. Samuel W Barnum; N.Y.: Appleton, 1915), Magog footnote: Sanscrit mah or maha = great (Knobel) or land (Hitzig); Coptic (combination of Egyptian and Greek) ma = place. The suffix -na indicates place in most of the ancient northern and western languages.
The three groups of the north Caucasian tribes of Sakas are Saka, Massagetae, and Scythian. The derivations appear straightforward: Saka = Ghogh(a), Scythian = Saka-ta (Saka hordes), and Massagetae = Mas-Syaga-ta (region of Saka hordes, Gog hordes, or mountain hordes). A similar meaning is found in Sogdiana (Saka-ta-na, Saka hordes’ territory), in modem Uzbekistan, USSR, near the Afghanistan border.
Thus, Saka = Syaga = Gog. This last is nearly preserved intact in modern Dagestan A.S.S.R., on the west side of the Caspian Sea, while the first is probably preserved in Kazakh S.S.R.
– James Parkinson