1903.] JASTROW — THE IIAMITES AND SEMITES. 203 



Of J's double list, only the Eber-Joktan, the southern branch, has 

 been preserved in the loth chapter/ the northern branch being 

 omitted by the compiler of J and P, because of its preservation in 

 the P document in the nth chapter, verses 16-26. The groups 

 thus included in J's genealogy cf Shemites would be limited to those 

 descended from Arpachshad and Aram, or since Arpachshad rep- 

 resents on the one hand the Hebrews as the descendants of the north- 

 ern branch of Eber-Peleg, and the Arabs on the other hand as the 

 descendants of the southern branch of Eber-Joktan, the Shemites 

 would be limited to groups in the immediate environment of the 

 Hebrews. The point of view is apparently that of the Hebrew 

 settlements to the east of the Jordan, Eber-Joktan representing the 

 southern groups and Aram the northern and northwestern, with 

 Eber-Peleg occupying the central position. Here too, therefore, 

 we find J presenting a contrast to P, who, standing for an enlarged 

 geographical and ethnological view, begins his enumeration with 

 Elam to the East and passes on in a westerly and then northwesterly 

 direction, which leads him to include Chaldsea, Babylonia and 

 Assyria and to end with Aram. The point of view here suggests 

 Babylonia or Chaldsea as the home of P, or at all events as the central 

 seat of the Shemites, with Elam constituting the eastern and Aram 

 the western limit and environment. Consistent, moreover, with 

 his view of the Hamites as the designation of groups settled in the 

 remote south, he excludes those peoples included by J in the Eber- 

 Joktan branch of Arpachshad from the Shemites, and as the Eber- 

 Peleg list of P in the nth chapter shows, P limits the Shemite 

 branch of Arpachshad to the Eber-Peleg or northern division. 



The general scheme in P's Volkertafel \% thus quite clearly based 

 on a geographical distribution into three zones, Japheth represent- 

 ing the remote groups to the west, north and northeast, the Hamites 

 representing the remote nations in the south, wliile the Shemites 

 represent those in the immediate environment of the Hebrews from 

 the point of view of a writer who, living in Babylonia, is influenced 

 both by conditions prevailing in his days, by the tradition which 

 traced the Hebrews to Chaldaea, as well as by the fact of the later 

 settlements of the Hebrews to the east of the Jordan and in Pales- 

 tine proper. Taking all these factors together, to which we ought 

 perhaps to add the inclusion of Babylonia under Elam as due to 



1 Verses 26-29. 



