Chaldea: From the Earliest Times to the Rise of AssyriaRagozin, Zénaïde A. (Zénaïde Alexeïevna)
History
Chaldea: From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria
Ragozin, Zénaïde A. (Zénaïde Alexeïevna)
Babylonia -- History
9. Yet, complete and correct as is the list of Chap. X., within the
limits which the writer has set to himself, it by no means exhausts the
nations of the earth. The reason of the omissions, however, is easily
seen. Among the posterity of Japhet the Greeks indeed are mentioned,
(under the name of JAVAN, which should be pronounced _Yawan_, and some
of his sons), but not a single one of the other ancient peoples of
Europe,--Germans, Italians, Celts, etc.,--who also belonged to that
race, as we, their descendants, do. But then, at the time Chap. X. was
written, these countries, from their remoteness, were outside of the
world in which the Hebrews moved, beyond their horizon, so to speak.
They either did not know them at all, or, having nothing to do with
them, did not take them into consideration. In neither case would they
have been given a place in the great list. The same may be said of
another large portion of the same race, which dwelt to the far East and
South of the Hebrews--the Hindoos, (the white conquerors of India), and
the Persians. There came a time indeed, when the latter not only came
into contact with the Jews, but were their masters; but either that was
after Chap. X. was written or the Persians were identified by the
writers with a kindred nation, the Persians' near neighbor, who had
flourished much earlier and reacted in many ways on the countries
westward of it; this nation was the MEDES, who, under the name of MADAI,
are mentioned as one of the sons of Japhet, with Javan the Greek.
10. More noticeable and more significant than these partial omissions is
the determination with which the authors of Chap. X. consistently ignore
all those divisions of mankind which do not belong to one of the three
great _white_ races. Neither the Black nor the Yellow races are
mentioned at all; they are left without the pale of the Hebrew
brotherhood of nations. Yet the Jews, who staid three or four hundred
years in Egypt, surely learned there to know the real negro, for the
Egyptians were continually fighting with pure-blood black tribes in the
south and south-west, and bringing in thousands of black captives, who
were made to work at their great buildings and in their stone-quarries.
But these people were too utterly barbarous and devoid of all culture or
political importance to be taken into account. Besides, the Jews could
not be aware of the vast extent of the earth occupied by the black race,
since the greater part of Africa was then unknown to the world, and so
were the islands to the south of India, also Australia and its
islands--all seats of different sections of that race.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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