1 - The Dispersion of the Peoples after the Flood

Summary

This chapter discusses the Table of Nations pattern and the motif of the ethnic groups issuing from the offspring of the Flood hero in both biblical lists (Gen 10) and Greek genealogical traditions. In striking contrast to both biblical literature and Greek genealogical traditions, the Mesopotamian Flood hero is not the father of a new lineage, but rather leaves this world to live among the gods, and his descendants are not heard of again.

Given the significance of the theme of the genealogical evolution of the nations from the Flood protagonist in both the biblical and Greek cultures, I will begin my discussion with the motifs relating to the first postdiluvian generation. In this chapter I shall examine the Table of Nations concept and the Flood protagonist’s descendants, and in the following chapter I will discuss the planting of the first vineyard.

According to the biblical account, when the Flood subsided Noah and his sons left the ark “and from these the people of the whole earth were dispersed” (Gen 9:19). Genesis 10 is devoted to their scattering, structured as a genealogical list deriving from Noah. Although the Flood story originated in Mesopotamia, none of its versions contains this element. Ziusudra, the Sumerian Flood hero, and Utnapishtim in the Gilgamesh account, win eternal life and are removed from the human sphere, and their descendants are not mentioned.¹ Although the end of the story of Atrahasis is fragmented, it appears that rather than describing humanity’s dispersion, it recounted how human procreation was limited in order to prevent another Flood. Although some of the versions of the Sumerian King List refer to the Flood as separating the preceding and following generations, they do not portray the Flood protagonist or his sons as the forefathers of a new humankind that emerges in its wake. Westermann and others have thus concluded that the biblical Table of Nations is unique and has no parallel either inside or outside the Old Testament.”² According to Westermann, it represents an internal biblical development created as a result of the elaboration of the Flood story and its accommodation to the following genealogical lists of the patriarchs.³

An analogy to this motif does exist, however, in the Greek genealogical genre that began to take written form during the sixth century bce or slightly earlier. Over a century ago, Samuel Driver, Edward Meyer, and Hermann Gunkel drew attention to the affinities between the biblical eponymous forefathers who represent groups of people in the Table of Nations and the Greek traditions.⁴ However, as mentioned in the Introduction to this book, these studies failed to adduce the full extent of the parallelism, merely observing the basic typological analogy between these two cultures. They did not even acknowledge that the central genealogical sequences in both cultures derive from the Flood hero: Noah, the father of Shem, Ham, and Japhet in the biblical literature, and Deucalion, the father of Hellen in the Greek world.⁵ This oversight was partly due to the fact that none of the early Greek genealogical compositions has survived in full, and study of them was still quite limited during the period in which these studies were written. In recent generations, John Van Seters has revived interest in these materials, although he himself regards the Flood hero as a secondary and insignificant element in the Greek texts and has therefore reached conclusions that differ from those presented in this study.⁶ In addition, in the past few decades, the discovery of large numbers of papyri fragments of the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women and the publication of Fowler’s new edition of the prose genealogical works of the early Greek mythographers have substantially increased our knowledge of this literature, allowing us to properly examine its affinities with the Table of Nations in Genesis 10.⁷ In the following pages, I will present the biblical and Greek sources, tracing the various traditions embedded within them. The unique parallels that emerge will illuminate the cultural and literary context within which this distinctive form developed within biblical literature.

The Biblical Tables of Nations

Genesis 10, known as the Table of Nations, in fact includes two “tables,” as is evidenced by the contradictions, doublets, rough seams, and stylistic differences in the chapter:

1. a) According to v. 7, Havilah and Sheba were the descendants of Ham and Cush, while in vv. 28–29 Havilah and Sheba (שבא) are said to be the offspring of Shem and Joktan.

2. b) Verse 13 states that the Ludim were the sons of Mizraim, while in v. 22 Lud is mentioned as the descendant of Shem.

3. c) While v. 22 records that Asshur was one of Shem’s sons, the name “Asshur” occurs previously in v. 11, together with the names of important cities founded within it – Nineveh, Rehoboth-ir, Calah, and Resen.⁸

4. d) In vv. 6–7 Cush is said to be the son of Ham, and his descendants include the eponymous forefathers of southern Arabia and Cush, apparently the eponymous ancestors of the Chushites who dwelt in southern Egypt, parallel to the southern Arabian tribes. However, vv. 8–12 state that he was the father of Nimrod, who ruled in Babylon. The fact that the founding of Nineveh and other cities in Asshur is referred to in this context suggests that Cush was associated with Mesopotamia.

5. e) While v. 8 records that Nimrod was born to Cush, the list summarizing Cush’s descendants in v. 7 makes no mention of Nimrod.

6. f) The section dealing with the sons of Shem has a double opening. Each unit in the Table of Nations begins with a reference to one of Noah’s sons, after which his descendants are listed: “The descendants of Japhet …” (10:2), “the descendants of Ham …” (10:6). While the same is true of v. 22 (“The descendants of Shem …”), another verse is added before the beginning of the unit “Sons were born to Shem …” (10:21).

7. g) Stylistic inconsistencies also abound. Thus, for example, while some of the genealogical units list the succession by a waw-conjunctive, as in “The descendants of Japhet – Gomer and Magog and Madai and Javan and Tubal…” (10: 2; cf. 10: 3, 4, 6, 7, 22, 23), in others the formula consists of the verb ילד in the qal form + the accusative marker את, as in “begot Ludim and Anamim…” (10:13–14; cf. 10: 8, 15–18, 24, 26–29), or in the pual form (10:21, 25).⁹

These inconsistencies suggest that Genesis 10 was not written by a single hand. Wellhausen’s division of the chapter into two threads resolves all the difficulties without requiring ad hoc explanations of any one verse and thereby reveals two independent genealogical lists relating to the dispersal of the peoples across the earth.¹⁰

The Priestly Table of Nations

The verses belonging to the principal stratum of Genesis 10 (1–7, 20, 22–23, 31–32) are marked by a consistent and distinctive style. The author appears to have adopted an independent source as the basis of his account, probably incorporating it unaltered. It cannot be regarded therefore as an editorial or supplemental stratum:

(1) These are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth

(2) The sons of Japheth: Gomer and Magog and Madai and Javan and Tubal and Meshech and Tiras. (3) The sons of Gomer: Ashkenaz and Riphath and Togarmah. (4) The sons of Javan: Elishah and Tarshish Kittim and Dodanim. (5) From them, the coastland peoples spread in their lands, each with his own language, by their families, in their nations.

(6) The sons of Ham: Cush and Egypt and Put and Canaan. (7) The sons of Cush: Seba and Havilah and Sabtah and Raamah and Sabteca. The sons of Raamah: Sheba and Dedan. (20) These are the sons of Ham, by their families, their languages, their lands, and their nations.

(22) The sons of Shem: Elam and Asshur and Arpachshad and Lud and Aram. (23) The sons of Aram: Uz and Hul and Gether and Mash. (31) These are the sons of Shem, by their families, their languages, their lands, and their nations.

(32) These are the families of the sons of Noah according to their genealogies, in their nations; and from them, the nations spread abroad on the earth after the flood.

The structure of the unit is clear-cut and orderly. It opens with a heading: “These are the generations (תולדות) of the sons of Noah: Shem, Ham, and Japhet” (10:1) and concludes with a summary statement: “These are the families of the sons of Noah according to their genealogies ”(10:32). The body is divided into three sections, each of which deals with the genealogy of one son: “the descendants of X + a series of offspring connected by a waw-conjunctive such as: “The sons of Japhet: Gomer and Magog and Madai and Javan and Tubal and Meshech and Tiras” (10:2). Each section concludes with the notation that these were the descendants of X son of Noah who were dispersed geographically and separated by language (10: 5, 20, 31). This narrative produces the family tree shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1 The Priestly Table of Nations

The list reveals an ordered geographical worldview. The descendants of Japhet are the people who dwell north of Mesopotamia and Canaan, from Madai in the east through the islands of the sea to Asia Minor and Greece, the home of the descendants of Javan, in the west. The descendants of Ham dwell in the south – Africa and southern Arabia, from the eastern side of the Red Sea, Canaan west of the Red Sea being their northernmost point. The descendants of Shem, who close the list, dwell at the center of the ancient world, from Elam and Asshur in the east through Aram to Lud in the west.¹¹ This yields a historic-geographic outlook according to which each of Noah’s sons begot offspring whose descendants dispersed across the earth, “each with his own language (ללשונו), by their families (למשפחֹתם)” (Gen 10:5; cf. vv. 20, 31, 32). The concentric structure (inclusio) of this unit and sub-units, their orderly structure, the use of headings and conclusions, together with the unique expressions תולדות (10:1, 32) and למשפחֹתם (10:5, 20, 31), are all distinctive of the Priestly author in the Pentateuch. This pericope thus clearly belongs to P.¹²

The Yahwistic Table of Nations

The verses in the chapter that do not belong to P (8–19, 21, 25–30) also form a consistent, coherent sequence, usually assigned to J:

(8) Cush begot Nimrod; he was the first on earth to be a mighty man. (9) He was a mighty hunter before YHWH; therefore it is said, “Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before YHWH.” (10) The beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech, and Akkad, all of them in the land of Shinar. (11) From that land he went into Assyria and built Nineveh, Rehoboth-ir, Calah, and (12) Resen between Nineveh and Calah (that is the great city).¹³

(13) Egypt begot Ludim, Anamim, Lehabim, Naphtuhim, (14) Pathrusim, Casluhim (whence came the Philistines), and Caphtorim.

(15) Canaan begot Sidon his firstborn, and Heth, (16) and the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgashites, (17) the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites, (18) the Arvadites, the Zemarites, and the Hamathites. Afterward, the families of the Canaanites spread abroad. (19) And the territory of the Canaanites extended from Sidon, in the direction of Gerar, as far as Gaza, and in the direction of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, as far as Lasha.

(21) To Shem also, the father of all the children of Eber, the elder brother of Japheth, children were born. <(24) Arpachshad begot Shelah; and Shelah begot Eber.> (25) To Eber were born two sons: the name of the one was Peleg (פלג), for in his days the earth was divided (נתפלגה הארץ), and his brother’s name was Joktan. (26) Joktan begot Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah, (27) Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, (28) Obal, Abima-el, Sheba, 29 Ophir, Havilah, and Jobab; all these were the sons of Joktan. (30) The territory in which they lived extended from Mesha in the direction of Sephar to the hill country of the east.

The non-Priestly thread includes a few elements that do not belong to the original unit and must therefore be removed before we can discuss the latter. The phrases “that is the great city” (v. 12b) and “whence came the Philistines” (v. 14) belong to the later stages of transmission of the text and should be excluded from the early sequence. These glosses were not written by the author of the unit, but by a later scribe. They are clearly displaced: the first should follow the reference to Nineveh (cf. Jon 1:2), and the second should follow the reference to Caphtorim (see Amos 9:7). A learned scribe familiar with the prophetic literature appears to have noted these on the margin, whence they were later mistakenly incorporated into the text.¹⁴

Verse 24 also appears foreign to the original unit. Its genealogical data, “Arpachshad begot Shelah; and Shelah begot Eber,” identical to that in the Priestly survey of the history of Shem’s lineage in 11:10–16, arouses suspicion. It does not belong to P, however, because it duplicates what follows and is written in a different style.¹⁵ It is also inconsistent with J because Arpachshad has not yet been introduced in this stratum. As many scholars argue, it thus appears to have been inserted by the redactor. He sought to align both sources at hand by linking Arpachshad, referred to in P (10:22) with Eber in the J sequence (10:21, 25), in accordance with the following Priestly genealogy (11:10–16).¹⁶

When these minor additions are removed, the remaining verses clearly constitute a coherent, orderly geographical description of all the important geographical centers of the biblical world, commencing with the two greatest powers in the ancient Near East – Cush (which here represents Babylon) and Egypt – followed by the inhabitants west of the Euphrates, the Arameans and Arab tribes, Canaan, and the Eberites (see Figure 2).

Figure 2 The Yahwistic Table of Nations

1. a) Babylon and Mesopotamia (10:8–12). Early scholars have already suggested that “Cush” here denotes the eponymous forefather of Babylon and that the name originates from the Kassite kings who ruled southern Mesopotamia between the second half of the second millennium bce and the twelfth century bce and from the name Kaššu/Kašši by which Babylon was known during this period.¹⁷ Cush’s descendant Nimrod ruled Babylon before migrating northwards and founding the cities in the region of Asshur.

2. b) Egypt (10:13–14). Here, Egypt (Mizraim)’s descendants are presented in plural forms – Ludim, Anamim, Lehabim, and so on – rather than by the names of eponymous ancestors. This form may have been influenced by the customary spelling of their father, םירצמ, that the author understood to be a plural form.

3. c) Canaan (10:15–19). Canaan’s descendants are the well-known royal cities in the northern Levant – Sidon, Arka, Sin, Arvad, and Zemer.¹⁸ Heth (v. 15), mentioned after Sidon, does not appear to represent the second-millennium Hittite empire, which surely would have been given a more prestigious position, parallel to Egypt and Babylon, rather than presented as Sidon’s younger brother. It probably denotes the Neo-Hittite kingdom that ruled at the beginning of the first millennium bce.¹⁹

4. d) Eber and his descendants, Peleg and Joktan (10:25–30). Joktan begot the tribes of southern Arabia. Peleg appears to have founded an Aramean dynasty that passed from Terach, to Nahor and Abraham, although only fragments of it have survived in this narrative thread (Gen 11:29–30). Since this list is the most detailed in J, being the only occasion on which three generations are adduced, there is no doubt that the author intended to emphasize this branch of the lineage. Later in the narrative, the lineage is expanded and includes references to Nahor’s descendants, the Aramaean and Edomite tribes (Gen 22:20–24), and other desert tribes – Abraham’s descendants through Ketura (Gen 25:1–4). This expansion of the lineage points to its significance for the Yahwist, for the Israelite forefathers are associated with it.

It is generally thought that the J unit in Genesis 10 was originally longer, providing a detailed picture corresponding to the Priestly version of the lineage of the peoples and their descent from Noah’s three sons.²⁰ According to this theory, the author of the chapter used the Priestly list as his basis, adding only things of special interest from J. However, it appears that the Yahwistic unit as we reconstructed it here can stand almost independently, as a virtually complete sequence covering all the important centers of the author’s world – Babylon, Egypt, Canaan, and Eber (including the Arabian tribes and Aram). It differs entirely from the Priestly Table of Nations, and even the isolated reference to the well-known sons of Noah – that is, Shem and Japhet (v. 21), is secondary in the Yahwistic Table of Nations. As Gunkel, Skinner, and others noted long ago, v. 21 is written in a rather unwieldy style. The first half (ולשם יֻלד גם הוא) lacks a subject, while all the other places in which the root ילד occurs in the pual (such as Gen 4:26 or 10:25) possesses one. The second half (אבי כל בני עבר אחי יפת הגדול) is formulated as a gloss explaining the nature of the link between Shem, Eber, and Japhet.²¹

It appears, therefore, that the Yahwistic thread in Genesis 10 had originally been an independent Table of Nations, unconnected to Noah’s sons, reviewing the lineages of the inhabitants of the important geographical centers of the region and their dispersion. Verse 21, a secondary addition, was introduced to link the original genealogical-geographical pericope to Noah’s sons. It cannot be ascribed to the unit’s final redactor because it duplicates the introduction to Shem’s descendants in verse 22; this redactor would not have needed to duplicate material he had just mentioned. It appears to have been inserted by the Yahwist, a compiler of diverse traditions, who included within it the sequence of Noah’s sons with which he was familiar – Shem, Japhet, and the third son, apparently Canaan.²² Canaan having already been mentioned in the original document, only Shem and Japhet needed adducing. In his preface, J rather awkwardly connected Shem to the descendants of Eber, ancestor of the Arab tribes and Aram, by means of the phrase ולשם יֻלַד גם הוא אבי כל בני עבר (“To Shem also, the father of all the children of Eber … were born,” v. 21) on the basis of the original verse ולעבר יֻלד שני בנים (“And to Eber were born two sons,” v. 25) which stood before him precisely at the juncture at which he wished to insert his comment.²³ The usage of the root יל"ד in the pual without a subject in verse 21 further indicates that the Yahwist used verse 25 as his pattern in writing the insert. The Yahwist also added Japhet, Shem’s brother, to verse 21. While unable to identify Japhet’s descendants, he seems to have been satisfied with mentioning Japhet as a way of linking the genealogical-geographic source that lay at his disposal with all Noah’s sons from the other literary traditions he incorporated into his composition.

The Amalgamation of the Sources in Genesis 10

The two Tables of Nations differ from one another in several significant respects. The Priestly “table” is much broader and more comprehensive in both its genealogical and geographical aspects. The borders of the Yahwistic “table” encompass Lud and the islands of the sea in the west, Babylon and Assyria in the east, the cities of Canaan and Hatti in the north, and Egypt and southern Arabia in the south. The Priestly author, on the other hand, knew many more peoples, at far greater reaches: Asia Minor and the Aegean world in the north (Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras), Cush south of Egypt, and Elam and Medes east of Babylon. P knows of the Median people who established an important kingdom in the region only from the end of the eighth century or beginning of the seventh century bce.²⁴ Had the Yahwist been aware of Medes’ great power and the rise of Persia from within it, he surely would not have ignored it. It thus seems that the Priestly “table,” with its broader geographical perspective, was formed at a later date than the J version.²⁵ In contrast to P, J contains not only genealogical data (father, son, etc.) but also traces of ancient legends, about Nimrod (10:8–10) and the division of the earth (10:25bα), together with delineations of boundaries (10:19, 30) and information on the foundation of cities (10:10–11). P’s version is a priori structured according to the pattern of Noah’s three sons, while J is more complex and seems to contain early material adapted to the general narrative framework. The two tables nonetheless also share a significant element – both preserve genealogical-geographic sequences describing the people of the world as a series of eponymous ancestors born from the sons of the Flood hero (albeit at a secondary stage in J).

The editorial task of combining the two threads into a single extant unit appears to have been relatively straightforward. The author adopted the Priestly list as the basis for his composition, filling it in with the second source. He copied from P until verse 7; he then added material he found in J to the verse referring to Cush (10:8), undeterred by the fact that the two places were not identical (one is in the area of Egypt, while the other [Kašši] represents Babylon). He continued to copy J (10:8–19) until the end of the list of the descendants of Ham, then switched to P (10:20). The list of the descendants of Shem was composed in a similar fashion. In this case, the redactor had at his disposal two prefaces, one from each source (10:21–22) and a closing sentence from the Priestly material (vv. 31–32). The remainder of the material relating to Shem, taken mostly from J (10:25–30), and to a lesser extent from P (10:22–23), was placed between the opening and closing of the section.

The Ancient Near Eastern Legacy

The principal component of the Table of Nations is the genealogical derivation of the eponymous ancestors from the Flood protagonist – that is, the use of toponyms or ethnic groups presented as early forefathers and arranged in a family tree (father, son, grandson) that demonstrates how they became the various nations of the world. Although the Flood story originated in Mesopotamia, as we have noted above, the Mesopotamian story contains no such genealogical motif; its hero leaves earth to live with the gods and his descendants disappear. The epigraphical findings from ancient Near Eastern civilizations reveal nothing similar to the genealogical genre, certainly not on the scale of the biblical Table of Nations and Greek genealogies discussed later. However, the earliest manifestations of genealogical works may nonetheless be found in two central elements of the Mesopotamian king lists that later reappear in biblical and Greek literature – namely, the use of the Flood as the dividing line between ancient, mythic generations and the generations of ordinary humans, and the limited and rather restricted reference to eponymous ancestors as representing geographic regions or ethnic groups.

The presentation of the Flood as a watershed is particularly evident in the early Mesopotamian king lists. The most prominent and well known of these is the Sumerian King List, which adduces the names of the kings and the years of their reign from the descent of the kingship from heaven to the first city of Eridu.²⁶ Some versions of the Sumerian King List contain a brief preface that includes the names of the first kings of the world, who reigned before the Flood. While the reigns of the first kings lasted for millennia, the reigns of those who lived after the Flood endured for only several hundred years, with the number of years assuming increasingly realistic, rather than mythic, proportions as time progresses. As is well known, P demonstrates a very similar understanding of the human lifespan. While the first prediluvian generations lived hundreds of years, the lifespan of the postdiluvian generations was drastically reduced. A similar notion of a divine edict reducing the number of years allotted to humankind to 120 appears in J, in close proximity to the Flood story (Gen 6:3), although there the ages of the people before or after the Flood are not specified.²⁷

The Flood also serves as the turning point in the sequence of the first kings in other Mesopotamian king lists, such as the Lagash King List (BM 23103) and the Dynastic Chronicle (ABC 18). Although these include brief accounts of the primordial times, they lack the genealogical framework found in biblical and Greek literature.²⁸ The Lagash King List opens in a similar way to the section after the Flood in the Sumerian King List, “After the Flood had swept over (egir a-m]a-ru ba-ùr-ra-ta, line 1)” and contains a relatively broad narrative preface describing postdiluvian humankind that recounts how the human race survived after the Flood and learnt the art of digging canals (line 40).²⁹ The bilingual Dynastic Chronicle (Akkadian–Sumerian), in addition to describing the royal dynasty and the number of years each king reigned, also contains a short depiction of the primordial period.³⁰ In 1980, Irving Finkel discovered additional fragments belonging to this work, revealing that it was preceded by a brief preface of seven prose lines recounting how Anu, Enlil, and Ea established the kingship for human beings at the beginning of time. The preface then lists nine kings who reigned before the Flood, in a style reminiscent of several versions of the Sumerian King List, and concludes with another short narrative expansion. Although the physical state of this fragment makes it difficult to ascertain its exact contents, the words that have survived, such as “Enlil” and “the noise” (mu₇.mu₇) made by human beings (lines 30–31), indicate that it contained an account of the Flood that separated the first generations of kings from subsequent generations.³¹ However, while these lists use the Flood as the dividing line for the sequence of first kings, they make no mention of its protagonist’s descendants and the nations to which they gave birth.

The king lists of the Western Semitic dynasties who ruled in Assyria and Babylon during the first quarter of the second millennium bce may provide a different type of analogy to the genealogical material in Genesis. These lists, composed during a period during which the Western Semitic (Amorite) dynasties seized power, make limited use of the motif of the eponymous ancestors representing ethnic groups or geographic regions. The employment of the names of peoples or geographical locations as the names of forefathers or early kings was a new and relatively unusual motif in the writing tradition of the Sumerian King List and it appears to have developed as a way of making the Western Semitic local traditions known by merging them with Mesopotamian forms. Although the eponymous names remain a very minor element in these lists, it may herald the appearance of much more complex lists in the later Western Semitic world – that is, the biblical literature composed centuries afterwards.

The Assyrian King List refers to the names and reigns of each of the kings who ruled in Assyria from its rise to Shalmaneser V (the last third of the eighth century bce).³² Although the period of the royal dynasty in Assyria is perceived in the full list as stretching across 1,500 years, the earliest stratum of the work appears to have been composed during the days of Shamshi-Adad I, who reigned at the end of the eighteenth century bce, to demonstrate the dynastic continuity of the Assyrian royal house and establish Shamshi-Adad’s claim to it. While most of the list consists of the names of the kings, together with the length of their respective reigns, the first seventeen names are written consecutively, without any mention of how long they reigned. At the end of this series, they are named by the list’s author as “seventeen kings who lived in tents” (17 šarrāni āšibūtu kultārī, line 10). The majority of these names, and similar ones, also appear in the Genealogy of the Hammurabi Dynasty (BM 80328), composed during the reign of the Babylonian king Ammi-Saduqa (seventeenth century bce), a descendant of Hammurabi.³³ A comparison of the two lists reveals a parallel; the two Western Semitic dynasties that held power in Assyria and Babylon at the beginning of the second millennium bce evidently regarded themselves as deriving from a common ethnic stock. However, some of the names are familiar to us from other sources as geographic places and names of Western Semitic (Amorite) ethnic groups. It thus appears that they represent eponymous forefathers rather than actual royal figures.³⁴

Amongst the more prominent names of the ethnic Amorite groups are ḫanu (Assyrian King List, line 6) or ḫeana (Genealogy of the Hammurabi Dynasty, line 4), which occurs in numerous Mesopotamian writings as a designation of the federation of Western Semitic tribes in the region of Mari; Didanu (Assyrian Kings List, line 5) or Ditanu (Genealogy of the Hammurabi Dynasty, line 6), which appears in the form Tidanu/Tidnu as the name of an Amorite group, or toponym in the Amorite region as early as the Mesopotamian inscriptions from the end of the third century bce; and Amnanu (Genealogy of the Hammurabi Dynasty, line 9), the name of a tribe from the area of Mari.³⁵ The names of the eponymous ancestors are appropriate to a nomadic tribal society (those “who live in tents”) and, without doubt, originated in the Western Semitic oral traditions that the kings brought with them. In contrast, the royal names are characteristic of the Sumerian King List genre and its focus on the kingship and its continuous succession. These Assyrian and Babylonian kings who came from the Amorite region thus appear to have adopted the Sumerian literary model of king lists, while also giving expression to their own early traditions. By adding Amorite eponymous names and making them part of the Assyrian and Babylonian royal succession, they were able to strengthen their claim to power.³⁶

As is well known, biblical literature also employs the names of places and peoples to denote eponymous ancestors, some of whom even belong to the same Syrian and north Mesopotamian region as in the Assyrian and Babylonian King lists; the name of Abraham’s forefathers, for example, Serug, Nahor, and Terach, all of whom came from the area of Haran.³⁷ However, while most of the genealogical data in biblical literature refer to eponymous forefathers, and kings are scarcely mentioned, the Western Semitic king lists from Assyria and Babylon allude to very few eponymous names, and these are confined to the first generations. In keeping with the Mesopotamian literary tradition, the primary focus of the Assyrian and Babylonian king lists rests on kingship and royal succession.³⁸ As we have already noted, although some lists mention the Flood, and the Flood is also undoubtedly a Mesopotamian motif, they do not list the protagonist’s descendants and the peoples who derive from them.³⁹ While these themes, which first appeared in writing amongst the Western Semitic, Assyrian and Babylonian kings, seem to have continued to develop within the Western Semitic world, no real parallel to the biblical motif and model existed in the second millennium bce.

The Dispersal of the Nations in the catalogue of women and Greek Genealogical Literature

In contrast to the Mesopotamian sources, Greek genealogical literature contains close parallels to the biblical Table of Nations.

The Derivation of Ethnic Groups from the Flood Protagonist

Like the biblical Table of Nations, the Catalogue of Women and subsequent Greek genealogical traditions depict the Greek people as descending from the Greek Flood protagonist – Deucalion, the son of Prometheus (FF 2, 4 M-W) and grandson of the Titan Iapetus.⁴⁰ Deucalion begot Hellen, the father of the Hellenes, who had three sons, Dorus, Aeolus, and Xuthus, the forefathers of the central Hellenic tribes (F 9 M-W = Plut. Quaest. conviv. 747f):

And from Hellen, the war-loving king, were born

Dorus and Xuthus, and Aeolus, who delighted in the battle chariot.⁴¹

These progenies rarely merit any significant mythical narrative; their main role is to represent the forefathers of the Greek tribes: Dorus, the forefather of the Dorians, Aeolus the forefather of the Aeolians, and Xuthus, who begot Achaeus and Ion, the forefathers of the Achaeans and Ionians.⁴² This genealogical tradition, known from several later sources as well, also appears in the papyri fragments discovered in the 1970s and 1980s that apparently belong to the Catalogue of Women (F 10a.20–23 M-W = P. Turner F 3, col. 1–2; P. Oxy. 2822.2):⁴³

And [Xuthhus made Creusa,] who had a lovely form,

the beautiful-cheeked daughter] of godly Erechtheus,

by the will of the immortals his dear] wife,

and she bore him] Achaeus [and Ion] of the famous horses.⁴⁴

The Ion referred to in the Catalogue of Women and Greek genealogical tradition as Achaeus’ brother can be identified with Javan, son of Japhet and father of Elishah, Tarshish, and others, in the Priestly Table of Nations (Gen 10:2, 4).⁴⁵ In both cultures, this eponymous ancestor appears as a human being in the genealogical sequence, but the geographic and genealogical details and literary traditions connected with Ion/Javan are different, corresponding, of course, to the information at the authors’ disposal and their areas of interest.⁴⁶

According to the Catalogue of Women, Deucalion and Pyrrha had offspring other than Hellen. After mating with gods, their daughters gave birth to people close in proximity to the Hellenes, but probably distinct from them.⁴⁷ Thyia, for example, from coupling with Zeus, gave birth to the eponymous ancestors of the inhabitants of northern Greece: Magnes the forefather of the Magnetes and Macedon the forefather of the Macedonians (F 7 M-W):

And she conceived and bore to Zeus who delights in the thunderbolt

two sons, Magnes, and Macedon, who delighted in the battle-chariot,

those who dwell in mansions around Pieria and Olympus.⁴⁸

In his studies of Greek ethnic identity, Jonathan Hall has demonstrated that the Catalogue of Women strikingly reflects the coalescence of Greek identity during the sixth century bce.⁴⁹ During this century, Hellen’s sons Dorus, Aeolus, and Xuthus were regarded as part of the Hellenic world, whereas Deucalion’s other progeny were perceived as distinct from it. The claim that the Macedonians were not regarded as part of the Hellenes in the sixth and fifth centuries bce is supported by the well-known story of Alexander I, an ancestor of Alexander of Macedon, recounted by Herodotus. When Alexander came to Olympia to take part in the Olympic games, his Greek rivals sought to prevent him from participating on the grounds that “foreigners were not allowed to take part in the contests, only Hellenes” (5.22).⁵⁰ After he proved to them that he, unlike most of the Macedonians, was of Argive descent, the Hellenodikai allowed him to participate. The name of the latter suggests that they were responsible, inter alia, for determining who was a Hellene and thus eligible to take part in the games.⁵¹

According to the Catalogue, Hellen’s contemporaries included Graecus, born to a young girl (κούρη) in Deucalion’s house named Pandora, who mated with Zeus (F 5 M-W = Jo. Lyd. Mens. 1.13):

and a maiden in the halls of illustrious Deucalion,

Pandora, who with Zeus the father, the commander of all the gods,

having mingled in love, bore Graecus, who delighted in remaining steadfast in battle.⁵²

It is unclear whether the Pandora referred to here, who mates with Zeus, is Deucalion’s daughter, or the “first woman” described in the Hesiodic tradition, according to which she is the mother of Pyrrha, Deucalion’s wife.⁵³ In any case, Graecus is not portrayed here as a Hellene; thus, the Grecians, the ancient tribe who dwelt in northwestern Greece in the region of Epirus, after whom the Greek world was named by Westerners, were perceived by the author of the Catalogue not as Hellenes but as their close relatives, connected to them from primordial times.⁵⁴

In addition to recording the eponymous ancestors descending from Deucalion, the Catalogue of Women also contains the well-known story of the creation of the Leleges from the stones thrown by Deucalion and Pyrrha (F 234 M-W).⁵⁵ They represent the pre-Greek peoples who dwelt in one of the strips of central Greece or Anatolia from primeval times and thus were not Hellenes. Their depiction as “a people gathered from the earth” (λεκτοὺς ἐκ γαίης λαούς, F 234.3 M-W) is consistent with their portrayal as autochthonous, in contrast to some of the Hellenic peoples, who were customarily regarded as immigrants.⁵⁶

The genealogical data that emerge from the first fragments of the Catalogue of Women can be summarized as shown in Figure 3.⁵⁷

Figure 3 Deucalion’s descendants according to the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women

The logographers, who wrote prose genealogical works, followed the model set by the Catalogue of Women. Hecataeus of Miletus, apparently the first logographer, exhibits the closest affinities with this paradigm; he also appears to have begun his narrative with Deucalion, albeit with several variations.⁵⁸ Although he included Hellen, the father of the Hellenes, in the Deucalion family tree, Hecataeus regarded him as the latter’s grandson rather than son, adding another generation of three sons before Hellen and his siblings. According to this tradition, Deucalion the Flood protagonist had three sons: Pronoos, Orestheus, and Marathonius (FGrH 1 F 13). Pronoos begot Hellen, who also appears to have fathered three sons, the fathers of the Hellenes (see Figure 4).

Figure 4 Deucalion’s descendants according to Hecataeus of Miletus

Scholars have struggled to understand the insertion of this additional generation and the character of these heroes. It can be said, however, that the three siblings motif appears to have become a standard pattern in the depiction of the beginnings of the world or national histories in Greek literature. In any case, there is a clear similarity to the biblical motif of the three sons of the Flood protagonist as the forefathers of the nations of the world. We know very little about the heroes of the genealogical dynasty described by Hecataeus. The name Pronoos appears to be connected to Pronoe, who, according to one of the fragments of the Catalogue of Women, was Deucalion’s mother (F 4 M-W).⁵⁹ Marathonius is not known from any other source. Jacoby suggests that the name attests to the city’s rise in status after the famous battle of Marathon, thereby intimating the date at which the work as a whole was composed.⁶⁰ The additional figure in the first generation is Orestheus, who reigned in the region of Aetolia, whence emerged Aetolus, the eponymous father of the Aetolians (FGrH 1 F 15). The appearance of the Aetolians in a separate branch from Hellen and his progeny indicates that Hecataeus also did not regard them as Hellenes; he too made use of genealogy to shape the traditions of the Greek clans and outline the relationships between the various groups.

Although the other logographers, including Acusilaus of Argos, Pherecydes of Athens, and Hellanicus of Lesbos, followed the basic model of the Catalogue of Women, they also criticized it and deviated from it at will.⁶¹ Acusilaus of Argos wrote from an Argive perspective, and thus apparently began with Phoroneus, the “first man,” according to this tradition (FGrH 2 F 23a).⁶² His sources seem to have included the early Phoronis Epic, which depicts Phoroneus as the “father of mortals (πατέρα θνητῶν ἀνθρώπων)” (F 1 PEG). According to Julius Africanus, Acusilaus also linked this primordial period to the Flood (apud Euseb. PE 10.10 = FGrH 2 F 23b).⁶³ Phoroneus thus seems to have been presented as belonging to the antediluvian generation or close to it. Similarly, in Plato’s Timaeus (22a), Solon recounts to the Egyptian priests the history of the Greek from “Phoroneus, who is called ‘the first man,’ and about Niobe; and after the Deluge, of the survival of Deucalion and Pyrrha,”⁶⁴ and then proceeds to list their descendants. This genealogical sequence beginning with Phoroneus and Deucalion (which certainly continued with Hellen and his offspring) seems to have gradually become standard during the fifth century bce. Thus, in Solon’s abbreviated account (Tim. 22a–24e), we find traces of the approach that became prevalent amongst the Greek genealogical traditions, which placed Deucalion, the Flood protagonist, at the beginning of all the generations.

The fragmentary state of the extant early Greek genealogical works prevents us from knowing whether they contained details of the Greek Flood story itself, as known from the later depictions of the first human beings. The appearance of a detailed account is not, however, strictly necessary to our argument. Even an allusion or brief mention is sufficient to demonstrate that the Flood myth and the genealogical traditions linked to the figure of Deucalion and his son Hellen (according to some sources) were already well known at the beginning of the fifth century bce, when the first logographers appeared, and became fixed at some later stage in the Greek genealogical literature. Comprehensive details of the Greek Flood story appear in the works of the early fifth-century poets, including Pindar and Epicharmus, the latter of whom wrote a comedy about Deucalion.⁶⁵

Later sources, including the Bibliotheca attributed to Apollodorus, have preserved a detailed historical account of the days of Deucalion. Hints at its central elements can also be found in the extant early mythographic works.⁶⁶ According to the Bibliotheca, when the Flood subsided, the ark landed on Mount Parnassus, where Deucalion and Pyrrha offered sacrifices to Zeus, who, in return, granted them a request. They asked for people, and Zeus commanded them to throw stones, from which emerged people (λαός), named after their origin, the stone (λᾶας). Deucalion and Pyrrha had three children, Hellen, the father of the Hellenes, Amphictyon, who ruled over Attica, and Protogeneia, who, from Zeus, gave birth to Aethlius (1.7.2–3). Hellen also had three sons, the fathers of the Greek tribes, as related also in the Catalogue of Women (which without doubt refers to the tradition of the stones that turned into human beings [F 234 M-W = Strab. 7.7.2]).⁶⁷ Hellanicus appears to relate how Deucalion and Pyrrha’s ark (λάρναξ) reached the environs of Mount Othrys in Thessaly, rather than Mount Parnassus (FGrH 4 F 117 = schol. Pind. Ol. 9.62b).⁶⁸ He also noted that Deucalion built an altar to the twelve gods (FGrH 4 F 6a-b = schol. Apoll. Rhod. 3.1085–1086), presumably after the Flood.⁶⁹ These details indicate that Deucalion was identified with the Flood from a very early point and that his place at the head of many Greek genealogies is quite probably due to his association with it.

Eponymous Forefathers of Nations and the Geographical Perspective

While the first book of the Catalogue of Women was devoted to the descendants of Deucalion, the second book (and apparently also the third) presents a different family line deriving from Phoroneus, the first man born to the river god Inachus (son of Oceanus and Thetis), according to the Argive tradition. The genealogical traditions in the second and third books, covering the ancestors and heroes of Argolis, such as Argos, the eponymous forefather of the Argives, is primarily Argive in orientation.⁷⁰ This lineage is particularly important for our purposes because, in contrast to Deucalion’s genealogy in the first book, which relates primarily to the eponymous ancestors and heroes of the Greek world and the neighboring ethnic groups, the genealogical lineage descending from Inachus and Phoroneus also includes numerous eponymous names of more remote peoples, dwelling outside of Greece, including many from the East.⁷¹

After depicting Phoroneus, the “first man” according to the Argive tradition, and Argos, the narrative turns to Io, one of Argos’ descendants, who, in the course of her wanderings, reached the lands of the eastern Mediterranean. Pindar and Aeschylus, who lived and worked at the beginning of the fifth century bce, recounted that Io mated with Zeus and gave birth in Egypt to Epaphus, the father of Libya.⁷² This tradition is also reflected in the Catalogue of Women. From her union with Poseidon, Libya gave birth to Belus, one of whose descendants was Arabus (F 137 M-W), and apparently also Agenor, who begot Phoenix (F 138 M-W), in line with a tradition also found in other Greek sources.⁷³ If we add Danaus and Aegyptus, born to Belus and his descendants (FF 127–128 M-W), to this family tree, the lineage shown in Figure 5 emerges.

Figure 5 The Argive genealogy in the Catalogue of Women

The majority of names following Io in this genealogical chart are eponymous and refer to peoples or divine figures linked to the East. Io, who appears at the head of this lineage, is also connected to the East. According to various sources, Io became a heifer, who wandered to the Mediterranean region.⁷⁴ Epaphus, born to Io through her liaison with Zeus, is described as the king of Egypt in many writings and his descendants include Belus and Agenor.⁷⁵ Herodotus (2.38, 2.153; 3.27) and many others after him understood this name as the Greek parallel to Apis, the bull god of Memphis, where Io eventually arrived.⁷⁶

Epaphus begot Libya, the eponymous nymph of the region bearing that name – that is, north-Africa – who mated with Poseidon and gave birth to Belus and Agenor, both of whose names are connected to the Phoenician world. As many scholars have noted, Belus is the Greek form of the name Baal, the head of the Phoenician pantheon,⁷⁷ and Agenor routinely appears in Greek mythology as a primordial king of Phoenicia. Belus begot Aegyptus, the eponymous ancestor of Egypt, and Danaus, the eponymous forefather of the Danaans, an ancient Greek group mentioned in the heroic tradition.⁷⁸ From this genealogical perspective, the Danaans, who represent all Greeks in the Homeric corpus, are equal in status and antiquity to the eponymous ancestor of Egypt, Aegyptus.⁷⁹ Belus also begot Thronia, who slept with Hermes and gave birth to Arabus, the eponymous forefather of the desert-dwelling Arabs. The passage in M-W 137 that recounts the story of Cassiepeia, Arabus’ daughter, represents the first allusion to the name “Arab” in Greek literature:

And the daughter of Arabus, born from guiltless Hermes

and Thronia, daughter of the lord Belus.⁸⁰

Both Agenor and Belus, as mentioned above, are associated with the Phoenician world. However, Belus begot eponymous ancestors of many ethnic groups linked to the East in general (such as Aegyptus, Danaus, and Arabus), whereas Agenor is the forefather of only Phoenician heroes, including Phoenix, the eponymous ancestor of the Phoenicians themselves (F 138 M-W).⁸¹ Phoenix fathered Europa from Cassiepeia, one of Belus’ descendants (F 138 M-W), and sired Adonis another woman (F 139 M-W). These are all well-known heroes identified with the Phoenician world in Greek literature.⁸² To this family the Greek genealogic traditions customarily attached Europa’s brothers – Cadmus, Cilix, and Thassos – who went in search of her.⁸³ These too are eponymous names of places in the eastern Mediterranean basin: Cilix is the eponymous ancestor of Cilicia, and Thassos is the eponymous forefather of the city and island bearing that name.⁸⁴ Their subsequent offspring are also heroes associated with the Mediterranean basin. From her union with Zeus, Europa gave birth to Minos, Rhadamanthys, who ruled in Crete, and Sarpedon, who ruled in Lycia.

This genealogical pattern creates a comprehensive geographical picture of all the Mediterranean lands known to the Greeks during the Archaic period – Arabia, Egypt, Libya, Lycia, Crete, and Phoenicia. Most of the Greek figures clearly belonged to the Phoenician world. As West has observed, not all of these eponymous names are associated with a known mythological legend; sometimes their appearance simply serves as a link in the lineage.⁸⁵ This geographical picture appears to have been intended to depict the genealogical relations linking the region of Argos with the peoples of the eastern Mediterranean – Phoenicia, Egypt, Crete, and Lycia – and establish its position among them.⁸⁶ Virtually no places north or west of Greece are mentioned, and the genealogy is clearly oriented toward the eastern Mediterranean region. The Egyptian world, represented by Io and Epaphus, is presented as the ancient origin of several peoples. From this area arose both Libya (symbolizing North Africa), and the Phoenician world, represented by Belus, Agenor, Phoenix, and their descendants, as well as other nations, including Aegyptus, the eponymous ancestor of Egypt itself, and Danaus, who here represents Argolis and the Greek world.

The Catalogue of Women refers also to Phineus, another of Phoenix’s sons, and includes the story of how Boreas’ son pursued the Harpies. This account contains an additional list of peoples and the gods who fathered them (F 150 M-W). In contrast to the peoples referred to earlier, the nations mentioned here are not part of the history of the Mediterranean basin and ancient Near East, but are mythical groups, like the dwarf Pygmies, giant cannibalistic Laestrygonians, and others living at the end of the world, including the Ethiopians at the southern end and their northern counterparts, the Hyperboreans.⁸⁷ The inclusion of these people in the Catalogue reflects the author’s great interest in the nations of the world, their geographical location, and genealogical relation to the Greek heroes, and his desire to paint a comprehensive picture extending from the Greek world to the ends of the earth.

In the generations following the Catalogue of Women, the Greek logographers who wrote prose genealogical works devoted much attention to the neighboring peoples surrounding the Greek territory and described the history of these nations and their eponymous ancestors. Pherecydes of Athens gives an account of the descendants of the Pelasgus, the eponymous forefathers of the pre-Hellenic inhabitants of Greece (FGrH3 F 156). Pherecydes includes amongst Pelasgus’ descendants the nations that inhabited Italy and other places in the wake of the early migration waves from Greece (ibid.). Over time, the geographical perspective of these genealogical works appears to have expanded westwards. The logographers’ interest in non-Greek peoples was, however, revealed primarily in their geographical and ethnographic works, such as Hecataeus of Miletus’ well-known Periegesis or Periodes ges.⁸⁸

Phoenician Tables of Nations?

Outside the biblical and Greek worlds, the use of geographical or ethnic names in genealogies can also be found in the writings of Philo of Byblos, who apparently drew upon early Phoenician traditions. In a description of the first generations “of those called mortals” (θνητοὺς ἄνδρας … καλουμένους, FGrH 790 F 2 = Euseb. PE 1.10.7), Philo presents a Sidonian or Tyrian tradition that includes two generations with geographic names. The first bears the names of Lebanese mountains, the second, areas within Phoenician cities (FGrH 790 F 2 = Euseb. PE 1.9–10). The members of the first generation, Casius (Mount Zaphon),⁸⁹ Lebanon, Anti-Lebanon, and Brathy⁹⁰ are named after mountains. Philo of Byblos explained that they were men of high stature and known by the mountains from which they ruled.⁹¹ Two brothers were born to them: Samemroumos, called also High-in-Heaven (Hypsouranios), who founded Tyre, and Ousoos his brother, who quarreled with him.⁹² As Otto Eissfeldt has demonstrated, Samemroumos (šmm rmm) was a quarter of the ancient city of Tyre, known today from a Phoenician inscription (KAI 15).⁹³ Ousoos is Ushu, the name of mainland Tyre, frequently referred to in ancient Near Eastern royal inscriptions.⁹⁴ Philo also inserts a foundation story, similar to the tradition regarding Nimrod in the biblical Table of Nations (Gen 10:10–12), describing how Samemroumos (Hypsouranios) established the city of Tyre. This foundation story appears to attribute the building of maritime Tyre to Sidonians from the šmm rmm region, thereby demonstrating both Sidon’s antiquity and its importance relative to Tyre and the other Phoenician cities.⁹⁵ The sibling rivalry appears to reflect the competition between maritime Tyre, or the Sidonians who claimed that they were responsible for founding the city, and Ushu, mainland Tyre.⁹⁶ A similar view of Sidon’s antiquity amongst the cities of Canaan occurs in the Yahwistic Table of Nations, according to which Sidon was Canaan’s firstborn (Gen 10:15).

A closely corresponding idea – the genealogical derivation of cities from one another – can be found on Hellenistic Phoenician coins. A Sidonian coin from the middle of the second century bce bears the Phoenician inscription lṣdnm ’m kmb ’p’ kt ṣr, that is, the coin “of the Sidonians, metropolis (literary ‘mother’) of Cambe [Carthage], Hippo, Kition, and Tyre.”⁹⁷ Not only is Sidon presented here as the most veteran of the Canaanite cities, but the relationship between the cities is also portrayed in genealogical terms: Tyre is the “daughter” of Sidon, one of the colonies established by the Sidonians. This view is clearly ancient, since Isaiah alludes to it (Isa 23:1–18), calling Tyre “daughter of Sidon” to cross over to Kition in Cyprus (23:12).⁹⁸

In the continuation of his account, Philo refers to additional eponymous names: “a woman named Berouth” (καὶ θήλεια λεγομένη Βηρούθ, FGrH 790 F 2 = Euseb. PE 1.10.15)⁹⁹ and a woman by the name of Sidon, “who was the first to discover how to sing a hymn on account of the surpassing beauty of her voice” (ἣ καθ’ ὑπερβολὴν εὐφωνίας πρώτη ὕμνον ὠιδῆς εὗρε, FGrH F 2 = Euseb. PE 1.10.27).¹⁰⁰ However, these characters, related to the cities of Beirut and Sidon, do not appear in a genealogical sequence that includes other eponymous ancestors. A tradition close to the biblical Table of Nations is found in a fragmentary note relating to Eisirios (Εἰσίριος), the brother of Chna (Χνᾶ), “whose name is later changed to Phoenix” (μετονομασθέντος Φοίνικος, FGrH 790 F 2 = Euseb. PE 1.10.39), the eponymous father of the Canaanites. The name Eisirios is not known from any other source; Bunsen has suggested emending it to εἷς Σύριος, thereby reading the sentence, ὧν ἦν καὶ εἷς Σύριος – “one of whom was Sirios,” that is, a Syrian.¹⁰¹ If this was the original reading, this text provides additional support for the existence of a Phoenician genealogical-geographic model resembling the biblical Table of Nations, according to which Sirios (denoting Aram or Assyria) was the brother of Chna, called also Phoenix, representing Phoenicia.¹⁰²

Notwithstanding the paucity of the extant Phoenician material, the information that can be gleaned from it indicates that the genealogical model of a lineage of eponymous ancestors representing cities and peoples existed in sources in the eastern Mediterranean basin from places other than Israel and Greece. This fact must be taken into account in the following discussion of the unique parallels between the Greek and biblical genealogies and the reasons for their development.

Affinities and Links

The Table of Nations in Genesis exhibit similarities to the Greek genealogical writings presented above in several key thematic, formal, and structural aspects:

1. 1) The genealogical succession from the Flood protagonist. In the biblical Tables of Nations, the nation’s forefathers and the neighboring peoples descend from Noah and his three sons; so too, in the Catalogue of Women and later Greek genealogical writings, the ancestors of the Greek ethnic groups and surrounding peoples descend from Deucalion.¹⁰³ His most important son was Hellen, the father of the Hellenes, who begot the three ancestors of the central Greek groups – Dorus, Xuthus, and Aeolus. However, while in the biblical text the Flood hero is the forefather of all humankind, the Greek version emphasizes his role as the father of the Greeks and the peoples closest to them. This distinction is of some significance, possibly indicating the secondary adoption of this model within the Greek world. If the Flood were intended to wipe out all humanity, we might expect that in the archetype of this motif, the protagonist would be the forefather of all humanity. However, the first genealogical stages in the Greek traditions focus on the Greek world and its close environs. This concentration on internal Greek affairs suggests the integration of local Greek genealogical types into the paradigm of the pan-human Flood account, or a secondary development of the primary pattern, motivated by Hellenocentic tendencies.

2. 2) The motif of the three sons. In the biblical Tables of Nations, all the peoples of the world are the descendants of the three sons of Noah – Shem, Ham, and Japhet (or Shem, Japhet, and Canaan).¹⁰⁴ Hecataeus of Miletus also relates that the Flood protagonist had three sons: Pronoos, Orestheus, and Marathonius (1 F 13 = schol. Thuc. 1.3.2).¹⁰⁵ Pronoos begot Hellen, the ancestor of the central Greek tribes. In the Catalogue of Women, this model refers to the central Greek tribes that issued from Hellen’s three sons – Dorus, Xuthus, and Aeolus. Although the paradigm of three sons appears frequently in folklore and is not in itself remarkable, in the specific context of the Flood protagonist’s descendants, where the sons also represent the ancestors of a series of peoples, the parallel is especially striking.

This motif became a common element principle in the Greek genealogical traditions. In later writings, three siblings appear at the head of lineages. Thus, for example, Hellanicus of Lesbos recounts in his Argolica that Phoroneus, the first man, had three sons, Pelasgus, Iasus, and Agenor (FGrH 4 F 36a = Eust. Il. 3.75).¹⁰⁶ Herodotus tells us that the Carians were the descendants of Car, whose brothers were Mysus, father of the Mysians, and Lydus, father of the Lydians (1.171).¹⁰⁷ According to this tradition, the three brothers, Car, Mysus, and Lydus, were born to one father who was the ancestor of the peoples living in Asia Minor. Elsewhere, he records that the Scythians are the descendants of Targitaos, son of Zeus, who had three sons, Lipoxais, Arpoxais, and Colaxais (4.5–6). These family lineages may have been influenced by the triple division of Hellen’s sons or similar Greek traditions.¹⁰⁸

1. 3) Lineages of forefathers of peoples. Both biblical and Greek literatures contain the genealogies of the eponymous ancestors of nations and geographic regions, near and far. This pattern also appears to a certain extent in Phoenician writings. Due to the paucity of the latter sources, however, I shall focus primarily on the Greek and biblical texts. While the Greek texts emphasize primarily the Greek peoples and their immediate environs, in the Argive genealogical traditions and the logographers’ literature we also find references to the eponymous forefathers of foreign peoples, such as Lybia, Aegyptus, Phoenix, Arabus, Cilix, and others, who represent the peoples of the eastern Mediterranean. Some of these names play no role in the plot and are known from Greek mythology only as links in the genealogical chain.¹⁰⁹ Figures such as Ion, Aegyptus, and Phoenix, in the Catalogue of Women, serve the same essential function as Javan, Egypt (Mizraim), Canaan, and other eponymous ancestors in the biblical Tables of Nations. It thus appears that in both the biblical and the Greek genealogical writings, the family trees are adduced to define ethnic identity and determine the genealogical relations between the peoples in the region. While the biblical texts make a clear distinction between the eponymous forefathers of the surrounding nations and the Israelite patriarchs, no such clear-cut differentiation exists in the Greek material, which at times depicts the ancestors of other peoples as descending from Greek heroes. In the biblical Tables of Nations, the patriarchs constitute a separate branch within the peoples of the area, a derivative of broader groups. In the Greek traditions, on the other hand, a more explicit hellenocentric tendency is evident and the ancestors of the nations are portrayed as the descendants of Greek heroes.¹¹⁰ This Greek genealogical view may point to a secondary development of a basic genealogical-geographic idea, within the Greek world.

These formal, thematic, and structural similarities between the biblical Tables of Nations in Genesis 10 and the Greek genealogical literature reviewed above have no counterparts in the epigraphic findings discovered in Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Hatti, in terms of genre, scope, technique or historiographical approach. These differences highlight the strong similarities between the Greek and biblical corpora in their depiction of the descent of the peoples of the world from the offspring of the Flood protagonist. How is this parallelism to be explained?

This uniqueness of the similarity precludes the possibility that the idea developed independently in the two cultures. On the other hand, nor did one influence the other; the biblical stories were certainly not disseminated across the sea during the sixth and fifth centuries bce, nor were the Greek traditions accessible to the Israelites. The Flood itself was not an original Greek idea but rather borrowed from ancient Near Eastern sources, as many scholars have demonstrated.¹¹¹ However, the idea that all the peoples of the world descend from the Flood hero does not appear in the Mesopotamian versions of the Flood story, only in the genealogical traditions of Israel and the Greek world. We may thus surmise that idea of the dispersion of the nations after the Flood reached both the biblical and Greek worlds via a mediating eastern Flood version, most likely one prevalent in the first millennium bce in the Levant or Syrian regions, where it was probably associated with a genealogical sequence. Scholars have already argued that a picture as comprehensive and detailed as that presented in Genesis 10 could only have been formulated within the Phoenician world, known contemporaneously amongst the seafarers, traders, and colonizers across the Mediterranean.¹¹² In light of the data presented here, we may conjecture that within this region, pieces of genealogical knowledge were placed within a historic-genealogical framework and connected to the story of the Flood. This new literary pattern could then have been disseminated from this region to the diverse cultures in contact with it. The links between the Phoenician and northern Syrian cultures and the peoples of the eastern Mediterranean basin, including the Greek and Israelite cultures, are well known and support this possibility.¹¹³

I will address later the question of the origins of the literary traditions in the two cultures and the connections between them, after reviewing all the literary patterns. At this juncture, it is sufficient to note that, in this case, a specific literary work was not transmitted from one place to another; both cultures developed endemic traditions. At the same time, however, some models and motifs, including the amalgamation of all the Greek traditions and their incorporation within a single sequence descending from the Greek Flood protagonist, were influenced by eastern literary genealogical models. The Greek world contained numerous traditions about the first human beings, the offspring of the gods and various nymphs, such as Phoroneus, the first Argive, or autochthonous figures such as Cecrops, the first king of Athens, and Pelasgus. Other myths depicted the formation of the first men from material associated with the earth, such as insects, trees, or a dragon’s tooth embedded in the ground.¹¹⁴ The author of the Catalogue of Women could have chosen any of these figures as the first pan-Hellenic hero from whom descended all the Greek forefathers and surrounding nations. Instead, he selected Deucalion. This choice appears to have been influenced by two factors: in the eastern Mediterranean literary tradition the Flood hero was already regarded as the ancestor of the nations who spread across the world, and, in the Greek world, Deucalion had already been identified as the Flood hero.

In conclusion, the Table of Nations pattern, that is, the idea that the surrounding nations descended from the offspring of the Flood protagonist after the Flood, is not unique to biblical literature. While it has no parallels in the Mesopotamian Flood story, it has a full analogy in the Greek genealogical writings, which describe how the surrounding nations and Greek peoples descended from Dorus, Xuthus, and Aeolus, the sons of Hellen, the son of Deucalion, the Greek Flood hero. Given its similarity to these traditions and later echoes in late Phoenician literature, we may surmise that the Table of Nations pattern developed within Flood traditions prevalent in the cultures of the ancient eastern Mediterranean.