the pl. (Rodanim, Ludim, etc.). Where the distinctions between
national and geographical designations, between singular, plural, and
collective names, are thus effaced, the only common denominator to
which the terms can be reduced is that of the eponymous ancestor.
It was the universal custom of antiquity in such matters to invent a
legendary founder of a city or state;[1] and it is idle to imagine any
other explanation of the names before us.—It is, of course, another
question how far the Hebrew ethnographers believed in the analogy
on which their system rested, and how far they used it simply as a
convenient method of expressing racial or political relations. When
a writer speaks of Lydians, Lybians, Philistines, etc., as 'sons' of
Egypt, or 'the Jebusite,' 'the Amorite,' 'the Arvadite' as 'sons' of
Canaan, it is difficult to think, e.g., that he believed the Lydians to be
descended from a man named 'Lydians' ((
Hebrew characters)), or the Amorites from
one called 'the Amorite' ((Hebrew characters)); and we may begin to suspect that
the whole system of eponyms is a conventional symbolism which was
as transparent to its authors as it is to us.[2] That, however, would be
a hasty and probably mistaken inference. The instances cited are
exceptional,—they occur mostly in two groups, of which one (16ff.)
is interpolated, and the other (13f.) may very well be secondary too;
and over against them we have to set not only the names of Noah,
Shem, etc., but also Nimrod, who is certainly an individual hero, and
yet is said to have been 'begotten' by the eponymous Kush (Gu.).
The bulk of the names lend themselves to the one view as readily as
to the other; but on the whole it is safer to assume that, in the mind of
the genealogist, they stand for real individuals, from whom the different
nations were believed to be descended.
The geographical horizon of the Table is very restricted;
but is considerably wider in P than in J.[3] J's survey extends
from the Hittites and Phœnicians in the N to Egypt
and southern Arabia in the S; on the E he knows Babylonia
and Assyria and perhaps the Kašši, and on the W
the Libyans and the south coast of Asia Minor.[4] P includes
in addition Asia Minor, Armenia, and Media on the N and
NE, Elam on the E, Nubia in the S, and the whole
- ↑ 'An exactly parallel instance . . . is afforded by the ancient Greeks. The general name of the Greeks was Hellenes; the principal subdivisions were the Dorians, the Æolians, the Ionians, and the Achæans; and accordingly the Greeks traced their descent from a supposed eponymous ancestor Hellen, who had three sons, Dorus and Aeolus, the supposed ancestors of the Dorians and Æolians, and Xuthus, from whose two sons, Ion and Achæus, the Ionians and Achæans were respectively supposed to be descended" (Dri. 112).
- ↑ See Guthe, GI, 1 ff.
- ↑ Judging, that is, from the extracts of J that are preserved.
- ↑ Kaphtorim (v.14): according to others the island of Crete.
