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 known earlier,—but that does not tell us when they were systematically tabulated. The (interpolated) list of Canaanites ($16-18$) is assigned by Jeremias (l.c. 256) to the age of Tiglath-pileser III.; but since a considerable percentage of the names occurs in the Tel-Amarna letters (v.i.), the grounds of that determination are not apparent. With regard to the section on Nimrod ($8-12$), all that can fairly be said is that it is probably later than the Kaššite conquest of Babylonia: how much later, we cannot tell. On the attempt to deduce a date from the description of the Assyrian cities, see p. 212.—There are, besides, two special sources of error which import an element of uncertainty into all these investigations. (a) Since only two names ( and ) are really duplicated in P and J, we may suppose that the redactor has as a general practice omitted names from one source which he gives in the other; and we cannot be quite sure whether the omission has been made in P or in J. (b) According to Jewish tradition, the total number of names is 70; and again the suspicion arises that names may have been added or deleted so as to bring out that result. and

The threefold division of mankind is a feature common to P and J, and to both recensions of J if there were two (above, p. 188 f.). It is probable, also, though not certain, that each of the Tables placed the groups in the reverse order of birth: Japheth—Ham—Shem; or Canaan—Japheth—Shem (see v.$2$). The basis of the classification may not have been ethnological in any sense; it may have been originally suggested by the tradition that Noah had just three sons, in accordance with a frequently observed tendency to close a genealogy with three names (4$21$ 5$19ff.$ 11$32$ etc.). Still, the classification must follow some ethnographic principle, and we have to consider what that principle is. The more obvious distinctions of colour, language, and race are easily seen to be inapplicable.

The ancient Egyptian division of foreigners into Negroes (black), Asiatics (light brown), and Libyans (white) is as much geographical as chromatic (Erman, LAE, 32); but in any case the survey of Gn. 10 excludes the true negroes, and differences of colour amongst the peoples included could not have been sufficiently marked to form a basis of classification. It is certainly noteworthy that the Egyptian monuments represent the Egyptians, Kōš, Punt, and Phœnicians