Joktan

Joktan (also written as Yoktan; Hebrew: יָקְטָן‎, Modern: Yŏqtan, Tiberian: Yāqṭān; Arabic: يقطان, romanized: Yaqṭān) was the second of the two sons of Eber (Book of Genesis 10:25; 1 Chronicles 1:19) mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. He descends from Shem, son of Noah.

In the Book of Genesis 10:25 it reads: "And unto Eber were born two sons: the name of one was Peleg; for in his days was the earth divided; and his brother's name was Joktan."

Joktan's sons in the order provided in Genesis 10:26–29, were Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah, Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, Obal, Abimael, Sheba, Ophir, Havilah, and Jobab.

In Pseudo-Philo's account (ca. 70), Joktan was first made prince over the children of Shem, just as Nimrod and Phenech were princes over the children of Ham and Japheth, respectively. In his version, the three princes command all persons to bake bricks for the Tower of Babel; however, twelve, including several of Joktan's own sons, as well as Abraham and Lot, refuse the orders. Joktan smuggles them out of Shinar and into the mountains, to the annoyance of the other two princes.[1]

South Arabian narrative
Statue of a South Arabian king. According to Arab genealogy, South Arabians descend from Qahtan who is identified with Joktan.

There is an Arab tradition that Joktan was the progenitor of all the purest tribes of Southern Arabia.[2] Joktan has been identified with Qahtān (Arabic: قحطان), the ancestral figure of Qahtanites, in traditional Arab genealogy.[3] Three of Joktan's sons have connections to South Arabia. Sheba is identified as the ancient South Arabian kingdom of Saba.[4] Hazarmaveth (Biblical Hebrew: חֲצַרְמָוֶת, tr. Ḥăṣarmāweṯ; Arabic: حضرموت) has been identified with the South Arabian region of Hadhramaut and according to various Bible dictionaries, the name "Hazarmaveth" means "court of death" which reflects a meaning similar to the Arabic folk etymologies of the region.[5] Hadoram according to Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan is interpreted as denoting "the south" and it was a fortress to the south of Yemen's Sana'a.[6]

Mongoloid race theory
Robert Wilkinson's 1823 map of the descendants of Noah's sons, showing Joktan and his sons as having populated eastern Asia: Havilah is Tibet, Sheba is Deccan, Jobab is Mongolia, Obal is China, Abimael is Indochina, Diklah is Japan, and Ophir is Indonesia, particularly the Maluku Islands.

Obsolete theories (based on a literal reading of Genesis 10:30, which states that Joktan's descendants migrated eastward) suggested that Joktan is the progenitor of the Mongoloid race, including east Asians and the indigenous peoples of the Americas, with the Yucatan Peninsula supposedly being named after Joktan.[7][8] One early proponent of this theory was the theologian Benito Arias Montano, who proposed a link between the names of Ophir, Joktan's son, and Peru.[8]

See also

References
Wikisource has the text of the 1897 Easton's Bible Dictionary article Joktan.
  1. Pseudo-Philo
  2. Easton, Matthew George, "Joktan", Easton's Bible Dictionary, retrieved 2022-03-11
  3. "JOKTAN - JewishEncyclopedia.com". www.jewishencyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2022-03-11.
  4. Finkelstein, Israel; Silberman, Neil Asher (2007). David and Solomon: In Search of the Bible's Sacred Kings and the Roots of the Western Tradition. Simon & Schuster. p. 171.
  5. "Hazarmaveth - Smith's Bible Dictionary - Bible Dictionary". www.christianity.com. Retrieved 2022-03-11.
  6. "Some interpret this as denoting 'the south.' This was a fortress to the south of San'a (Kesseth HaSofer). See 1 Chronicles 18:10; Zechariah 12:11". Archived from the original on 2005-11-30. Retrieved 2022-03-11.
  7. "History: The origin of the North American Indians with a faithful description of their manners and customs, both civil and military, their religions, languages, dress, and ornaments: To which is prefixed a brief view of the creation of the world ... Concluding with a copious selection of Indian speeches, the antiquities of America, the civilization of the Mexicans, and some final observations on the origin of the Indians: Introduction".
  8. Shalev, Zur (2003). "Sacred Geography, Antiquarianism and Visual Erudition: Benito Arias Montano and the Maps in the Antwerp Polyglot Bible" (PDF). Imago Mundi. 55: 71. doi:10.1080/0308569032000097495. S2CID 51804916. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2021-02-25. Retrieved 2017-01-17.
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