CHAPTER I.
THE TWO ARARATS. THE SONS OF JAPHETH.
1. Although the tradition of the Flood seems to have reached to almost every nation, it has been referred locally to some part of Western Asia, and particularly to that part known as Armenia. The Scriptures tell us that the ark rested upon “the mountains of Ararat,” Gen. 8:4, not upon any particular mountain called Ararat, as it has been assumed.
2. The word Ararat is found in the Assyrian inscriptions for Armenia.[21] A mountain 500 miles north of Babylon is called Mt. Ararat by travellers, and seems first to have been announced as the “Mt. Ararat” in A. D. 1250, as Bochart says.
The other claimant is 50 miles north of Nineveh and is called Mt. Kudur, the meaning being “the great ship.”[22] This view is supported by olderhistorians, such as Berosus and others. The Mt. Ararat of present travellers is a solitary double peak, called Mt. Massis by the Armenians, which rises 17,500 feet above the sea.
THE DISTRIBUTION OF RACES.
3. The tenth chapter of Genesis is considered one of the most remarkable chapters because of the aid it affords in tracing the early emigrations and distributions of the race. In this chapter the descendants of the three sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, are given. The descendants of Shem are known among scholars as Shemites or Semites, as those of Ham are known as Hamites. Although Shem is named first in order, Japheth is called the elder (ver. 21), and the genealogy begins with him.
THE SONS OF JAPHETH: THEIR MORE RECENT NAMES.
4. (a) Gomer. These were the Cimmerians of antiquity, the Cimbri of Roman times, and the Cymry or Celts still existing. Their ancient country was north of the Black Sea, including the Crimea and the shores of the Sea of Azov.
The name Crimea is a corruption of the ancient name. It is to this north land Ezekiel refers in chap. 38:2, 6. A part of them went southward to Asia Minor when driven out by the Scythians, and some emigrated to the west of Europe and to Britain. The Welsh call themselves Cymry. “The sons ofGomer” were “Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah.”
5. Ashkenaz. The name means “THE HORSE MILKERS,” and suggests some race of a wandering tribe of the same general country of the Cimmerians or of that land northeast of them. The names Ascanius, a river and lake in Asia Minor, and Scandia and Scandinavia, suggest that they may have entered Phrygia, as Bochart supposes, but the associations are uncertain. They seem in later times to have in some degree returned to a region near Armenia, since Jeremiah associates them with Ararat, Jer. 51:27.