According to the King James version of the Bible, Genesis 10:1-5 gives the location of Japheth and his descendants; verses 6-20 tells of Ham; and verses 21-31 gives the first location inhabited by Shem and his descendants.

Genesis 11:2-9 indicates that the latter were scattered and their tongues confused. Shem was the father of the Semitic race, which consisted of more than just the Hebrews and the Israelites. Genesis 10:21-31 states that Shem had five sons. The descendants of Shem are referred to as the Semitics, due both to the language they spoke and the area where they lived. Judaism and Christianity and later, Islam, sprang from their belief in one God. The greatest literary achievements of these early Semitic people are still with us today: the Holy Bible; the Talmud, the code of Jewish law; and the Koran, the sacred law book of the Moslems.

From Genesis 32:28 we learn that Jacob was the first Israelite. Jacob had twelve sons who were the Progenitors of the twelve tribes of Israel, or the Twelve Nations. Genesis 29:32-35, 30:16-24 and 35:18 names his sons as follows: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulon, Joseph and Benjamin.

According to II Chronicles, 10-14, trouble was present among the Twelve Tribes when King Solomon died. Judah's tribe led Benjamin's tribe to form a separate nation called Judah, whose lands lay to the south. The term Jew evolved from this name, although at that time the faith was that of Abraham and the original Hebrews, i. e., the worship of the living God of the Old Testament, as opposed to some of the Nations' worship of idols. Only after the birth of Christ when some of the followers of the Hebrew faith did not recognize Christ as the Son of God, did the meaning of the word Jew begin to change. At this time the meaning of the Hebrew faith became mixed with some other beliefs.

Records indicate that the descendants of Benjamin and Judah remained more true to the old faith. The other Tribes stayed together and formed a nation they called Israel. At that time some of them also kept the Hebrew faith. Using the Scofield Bible time-table, in 721 B.C., Assyria destroyed the Nation of Israel, which was comprised of the ten tribes whose land lay to the north. The people were dispersed and assimilated with other people. Many were taken as slaves into Assyria, others were sold and taken away from the area. Thus, these people, along with their language, their culture and their faith, became know as the "ten lost tribes of Israel". The tribe (meaning "nation") of Naphtali was one of these lost tribes.

The area given to Naphtali and his descendants was west of the sea of Chinnereth, in the northern part of the land next to Asher, who had been given the land by the great sea (Mediterranean). Judges 1:33 reveals that the Naphtalites were unable to drive out all of the other inhabitants of the land when they received it, and therefore dwelled together with people who were tributaries [sic] of the Naphtalites.

The area of the Naphtalites was known as Galilee and at one time included the city of Hazor. In his book, "The Rediscovery of A Great Citadel of the Bible" (Random House, 1975), archaeologist Yigeal Yadin tells of locating and excavating the ancient city of Hazor during an expedition in 1955-57. Yadin dates the original city to 2500 B.C. I Kings 15:20 names three main cities at the time the Assyrian king, Tiglah-Pilsner, conquered the Naphtalites, viz., Kadesh, Kartan and Hommothdor. With their capture, the Biblical account of the Naphtalites ends.

In recent years, excavations by archaeologists in several areas have helped trace some of these people through the countries and across the seas and proved that the war-like tribes that were in what is now Europe, centuries later, were from the same progenitors. Bone structure, height, jewelry, and many customs lead to this conclusion. Even though they had intermarried with other nations, these people held onto enough of their heritage to be sorted out centuries later.

Over most of his history, man has been a food gatherer and follower of the hunt. For that reason, there was a veritable circulation of peoples from the Middle East into Europe through southern and eastern Europe and through North Africa, and on through what is now Spain. The ebb and flow of people into Europe interfaced with the advance and recession of the ice during the last Ice Age. Some hardy people remained close to the line of ice, hunting the horse, the mammoth, the reindeer, and other creatures that had adapted to the cold. Those people are believed to be the ancestors of substantial parts of the population of the nations of North Europe.

These early hunting peoples of northern Europe are usually called Paliolithic or Old Stone Age people. They were, generally, tall and rugged-looking people with a greater than average skull capacity. Their counterparts of today are fair-skinned and similar in hair color to other North Europeans, with, perhaps, a higher percentage of individuals with red hair. Substantial numbers of similar people are found today in Ireland, Britain, and in parts of Germany, Holland, and Scandinavia.

Until about 9,000 years ago there is believed to have been a broad valley where the English Channel is today. Therefore, the early hunters had easy access by land to what is now the British island. They were followed by Bronze Age people of unknown origin, and eventually, by the Celts who had superior weapons of iron.

The homeland of the Celts as a distinct people is said to have been in what are now parts of Czechoslovakia, Austria, and South Germany. There they were associated with the early Iron Age culture of that region. By most accounts, the Celts began their conquest of western Europe and Britain ca. 1000-500 B.C. They became the Gauls of France, Belgium, and Switzerland; and the Celts of Britain and Ireland. By the time of Julius Caesar, the Celts had a well-established but un-unified control of most of Europe west of the Rhine, including most of the British Isles and Ireland. They also occupied a region south of the Alps in Italy itself--Cisalpine Gaul.

As Caesar made only two invasions of Britain, neither of which was permanent, he came in contact with Belgic tribes, no doubt intermixed with their former neighbors, the Germans. Caesar recorded his impressions of the British Celts:

The coastal people are like the Belgic of the mainland: those in the interior claim to have been there from the beginning. They have numerous cattle; homesteads resemble those in Gaul. The coastal people grow grain but those in the interior live on milk, meat, and wear skins. They do not eat rabbits, geese, or other fowl although they keep them for amusement. They dye their bodies blue; are clean-shaven except for head hair, worn long, and a mustache. They share wives, particularly among brothers. In fighting, they use chariots and cavalry.

The religion of the Celts was Druidism, whose priests were not only religious leaders, but were healers, teachers, and custodians of the oral traditions of the tribes. The natural temples of the Druids were the great oak groves, places which were holy. Roman historians wrote that the Druids practiced human sacrifice, but at least one report stated the victims were convicted criminals. The fact that Britain was the learning center for that religion is some indication that Druidism may have been native to Britain. (The great stone monuments of Britain and France were there long before the Celts came).

It was about a hundred years later (in about 41 A.D.) when Rome began its conquest of Britain. That reign lasted for some 400 years, but never included Ireland and Scotland. During Roman rule, anyone, without regard to race, could become a Roman citizen. British troops were noted fighters and were stationed throughout the Roman Empire. Troops from all over the Empire, including much of Asia, were stationed in Britain. York and Chester were sites of important Roman Army posts where they could guard against the Picts and Scots on the other side of the Roman Wall. It is reasonable, then, to presume that these soldiers from the far reaches of the Roman Empire left some genetic contribution to the British race.

The Romans brought unification and peace to Britain. They built an extensive road system and well-planned towns. There was freedom of religion, except that Druidism was regarded as a disruptive force. Winston Churchill stated in his "History of The English Speaking Peoples" that the well-to-do people of Roman Britain with their central heating and hot baths lived better than they ever did until late Victorian times--some 1500 years later.

Christianity came to Britain in the waning days of the Roman Empire--and to Ireland, which had never known Roman occupation. But soon after Roman withdrawal, the onslaught of the barbarians on Roman Britain began from the north and from the sea. The invasions from the sea--primarily of the Germanic Anglos and Saxons and Northmen from Scandinavia--soon became wholesale migrations of people. In this way, Anglo-Saxon England was born. The Romanized Britons did not disappear; they were merely conquered and were absorbed to varying degrees into the Anglo-Saxon nation which emerged. During the lapse into barbarism that followed, the Latin language disappeared and Celtic languages continued only in Cornwall, Wales, and a few remote areas of England. The use of Gaelic continued in Ireland and in parts of Scotland.

During the latter part of the Saxon period, there was an invasion by Danes which resulted in their permanent settlement in eastern England. For a while in the twilight of Saxon power, King Canute of Denmark became King of England. His empire also included Norway as well as Denmark and England. Danish and Viking settlements were also established over a long period of time in Scotland and Ireland. Dublin and several other important Irish cities of today had their beginning as Scandinavian settlements.

Meanwhile, the Northmen had conquered what became Normandy in northern France. After many years, they intermarried with the local population and adopted the French language. However, many Normans retained their Scandinavian names. Thus, when William the Conqueror won the Battle of Hastings in 1066 and established Norman rule in England, he brought over with him a ruling class bearing both Norman French names. Furthermore, the Anglo-Saxons, other Germans, and Scandinavians, are all Teutonic peoples whose languages and personal names were considerably similar. Thus, we often cannot distinguish between Anglo-Saxon and Norman names unless we have the very early Norman spellings of the names which sometimes show the places of origin in France.

Over the years that followed the Norman conquest of England, all of England was organized in the feudal manner of the Continent, and although many feudal concepts and practices were introduced to England by the Normans, they did not destroy the basic Anglo-Saxon structure of the counties and other subdivisions.

It should be kept in mind that there probably has been a migration of people both from Britain to Ireland and from Ireland to Britain and Scotland from the earliest times. What is not generally understood is the extent to which Ireland became for several hundred years the principal center of civilization in Western Europe. A leading modern British historian, Arnold Toynbee, attributes this Irish preeminence to two main factors: the damage done to other centers of civilization in England, France and Italy by Germans and Scandinavians, and the fact that after St. Patrick's mission to Ireland about 432-461 A.D., the Irish were left relatively undisturbed to develop their own culture and their own unique version of Christianity.

During these centuries of cultural ascendancy of Ireland over Britain and the European continent which Toynbee dates from about 548 A.D. to 1090 A.D., Irish missionaries were active from Scotland and England to Switzerland and Italy. During this period, students came from all over Britain and Continental Europe to study in the Irish monasteries. But the resurgence of Rome and subsequent contest between Irish and Roman missionaries in England resulted in Roman Catholic ascendancy. Then Ireland itself was subjected to devastation by Danes and Vikings to such an extent that it gradually yielded to Rome on points of doctrine. But the distinctive character of Irish culture was never completely obliterated, although it was reduced to the most dire straits during English rule.