The descendents of Japheth in Genesis 10:2-5 are speculatively identified as follows:
Gomer
Possibly they are the Cimmarians of southern Russia. They are mentioned by Heredotus, by Homer, and in Assyrian inscriptions.
Magog
This is probably a place name. In Ezeklal 38 and 39 there is a Gog of the land of Magog who rules over Meshech and Tubal. Josephus, the Jewish historian writing in the first century A.D., identifies Gog with the Scythians who were residents of the land north and northeast of the Black Sea. It is possible that both Gog and Magogrefer to unspecific groups living somewhere to the north of the writer.
Javan
This is presumably Ionia but the application of the term in the Bible is to the whole Greek-speaking world. Ionia in the strict sense is the Aegean shore of Anatolia and the adjacent islands.
Tubal
Tubal may be related to Tubal-cain in Genesis 4:22, “the master of all coppersmiths and blacksmiths”. The land of Tubal mentioned in Assyrian sources may have been the vicinity of modern Kayseri. In Hittite hieroglyphics Tabal refers to this area. Or the name Tubal may be related to the name Taurus, the mountains where iron was perhaps first smelted.
Meshech
There Is a people called Mushki who had a king named Mita; his capital was at Gordium in central Turkey. This may be the same king as Midas, king of Phrygia, legendary for his riches and his ass’s ears.
Ashkenaz
Ashkenaz is the modern designation for the Jews of northern Europe, as opposed to the designation of Sephard for those from Spain and Portugal. But it seems more likely that the biblical Ashkenazim were the Scythians of southern Russia.
Kittim
These were inhabitants of Cyprus and the coast of Asia Minor and are mentioned under other names (Chittim, Alashiya).
Tarshish
Its location may be as far away as Spain, but it seems not to have a connection with Paul’s Tarsus in southwestern Turkey. Or the reference may be to Tarshish of the Kittians, making it some place in Cyprus.
Shem
The descendents of Shem (Genesis 10:21 -31) include Asshur, Lud, and Aram whose areas appear to include parts of modern Turkey :
Asshur
This is identified with Assyria whose northern borders are in south central Turkey between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.
Lud
This Hebrew word may be an attempt to reproduce the name of the country we call Lydia which was the kingdom centered around İzmir. The Lydians are also listed as descendents of Ham (Genesis 10:13).
Aram
It has been used to denote the whole country of Syria, but is more particularly for the hilly districts possibly including the Amanus Mountains of Turkey. Padan Aram is the plain of Aram.
The rest of the descendents of Noah oppear to have little direct relationship to places in Asia Minor.
OTHER REFERENCES TO ANATOLIA
There are other probable ties between the Old Testament and Anatolia ;
Shephelah
Obadiah 19 mentions the Shephelah, or, as it is translated in the Revised Standard Version, “the exiles of Jerusalem who are in Sepharad”. Probably those were captives sold as slaves to the city known as Sardls in western Turkey.
Minni
The Minni of Jeremiah 51:27 are the Manneans of late Assyrian inscriptions, and seem to have been located south of Lake Urmia in Iran, not far from Lake Van in eastern Turkey.
Media
During part of the period of the Median Empire its northern reaches included what is now the southeastern corner of Turkey.
Coa
The Coa (or Kue in Assyrian records) of I Kings 10:28 was Cilicia, the area of southwestern Turkey. It was famous for its horses.
Hatti
The capital of the Hittite kingdom, Hattusas, was east of present-day Ankara in what is now known as Bo§azkale. The Hittites are mentioned many times in the Old Testament. In addition to I Kings 10:29, there is a reference in I Samuel 26:6 to Ahimelech the Hittite, one of David’s advisors in the incident in which David stole the spear and water jar from Saul while he was asleep. Uriah (II Samuel 11 and 12) and presumably his wife Bathsheba were Hittites.
Hurrians
Perhaps the people referred to as Hivites In Exodus 3:17 are those we speak of today as Hurrians. The “r” and “v” characters in Hebrew can easily be confused. They are also identified in several places as the Horites from Seir. A number of tablets in the Human language discovered at Bogazkale indicate the Hurrian influence there in the middle of the second millennium B.C.* A center of the Hurrian kingdom was today’s Urfa. So far it appears that Mittanni was a
Hurrian kingdom created by Indo-Aryans who fought from horse-drawn chariots. But a lot more has yet to be learned about the Hurrians to fill in this gap in history.
Eden
Traditionally the Garden of Eden has been located in the fertile area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. These rivers both rise in central Turkey; however Eden is usually thought of as being closer to the mouths of the rivers than the foothills of the Zagros Mountains where some of the earliest archeo-logical remains of civilized man have been found. It is in this area that the Neolithic Revolution took place. One wonders if the story of man’s eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge is related to the story of his emergence from instinctive food-gatherer to responsible food-producer.
