186 JASTROW — THE HAMITES AND SEMITES. [April 4, 



Meshech and Togarmah/ and in general this prophet is distin- 

 guished by the very wide range of his geographical knowledge. We 

 are, therefore, justified in concluding that Babylonian influence and 

 contact with the intellectual atmosphere of Babylonia are responsible 

 for the display of geographical interest and learning in P's V'dlkeriafel 

 and in Ezekiel. On the other hand, for the knowledge of Ionia 

 (Javan) it was not necessary to turn to Babylonia or Assyria, for as 

 already suggested,'' commercial relations between Palestine and the 

 islands and districts lying to the west up to distant Tarshish 

 would account for the knowledge of the chief settlements in the 

 Greek archipelago and regions beyond. This knowledge may well 

 have existed among the Hebrews in pre-exilic days, and the view 

 here maintained by no means implies that all the geographical 

 learning displayed in P comes from contact with Babylonia, but 

 merely that, apart from certain direct influences, the enlargement of 

 the ethnological horizon of Hebrew writers and the impulse to draw 

 up such a Volkertafel as is found in P can best be accounted for 

 by the new factor that entered into the intellectual life of the 

 Hebrews through their settling in the Euphrates Valley. Be this 

 as it may, the political contact of the Hebrews with those groups 

 enumerated as sons of Javan did not begin until the period of Greek 

 conquests in the Orient, and, unless we choose to bring the compi- 

 lation of P's Volkertafel down beyond the age of Alexander the 

 Great, which on other grounds is improbable, we are forced to con- 

 clude that all the nations enumerated under Japheth are to be placed 

 in the category of peoples with whom the Hebrews up to the time 

 of the composition of the Priestly Code had practically nothing to 

 do. The division of Japheth into two branches, (a) Gomer and 

 offshoots and (b) Javan and offshoots, merely represent from the 

 point of view here maintained the distant nations dwelling to the 

 northeast and north on the one hand, and the groups to the 

 west and northwest on the other, more particularly the inhabitants 

 of the Grecian islands, and those settled along the coast of Asia 

 Minor. 



V. 



Coming to the Hamitic genealogy, the wavering of traditions 



^See, e.g., chapter 38 of Ezekiel. 

 ^See above, p. 177. 



