THE NATIONS
The question is asked at times concerning the origin of the "races" or nations of people. First, let us define the terms. There is actually only one race. It is the human race. When God created all things, He created them according to their "kind". Science, both secular and religious, has defined "kind" to relate to the genus of the species or in simpler terms, all the types that can interbreed and produce offspring. This indicates that since all Homo sapiens are capable of breeding with all Homo sapiens then they are the same kind or race. This is seen most familiarly in the canine world. There is only one kind of dog. All the variations from chihuahua to Great Dane are variations that men have engineered to produce traits that are desirable for specific functions, hunting, herding, protection, etc. All dogs are capable of producing offspring with all other dogs and indeed, if left to a wild state they would all revert back to a homogenous breed of mongrel from which they descended. The races or nations of people are created from the natural selection process, in a sense. When God created Adam and Eve, he put in them all the genetic material that is available and observed in the world today. Just for reference, you might want to read Romans 1:20, which gives instruction on research. The genetic code that was implanted in the first two people was first, absolutely perfect and orderly. Since there had been no combining of sperm and egg then there was no variation in the genetic code and it was pure. When Adam and Eve first conceived a child, it was the start of what scientist's calls "increasing entropy". That is, moving towards disorganization rather then becoming more organized and orderly. With each generation that followed the genetic code was further changed. The basic pattern of course remains the same, even to our day but with cell division came minute changes and variations. The races as we know them today are traced back to the three "genetic founders" Shem, Ham and Japheth. You will recall that these are the three sons of Noah who are the ancestors of all the people on the earth today. From these three fathers were formed, not races, but streams of nations that populated the corners of the earth. The physical characteristics of these founders determined the three subdivisions of what we normally call "the races". "It is not hard to assess the origin of an individual with respect to the major racial subdivisions: the straight- haired, tan Orientals, the wiry-haired dark Africans, and the lank-haired pale Caucasians. If we analyze our impressions in detail, we find that they come down to a few highly visible characteristics: the color of the skin, the color and form of the hair and the gross morphology of the face, the eye folds, the nose and the lips". Right here we need to consider the mechanics of genetics. When God implanted all genetic material in the first peoples there was (as they are called today) dominant and recessive genes. As long as there was free intermarriage within a small population, the appearance of the men would probably be fairly uniform, following the dominant gene for the physical characteristics. As a side note here I just pondered to my wife that Adam and Eve must have/should have looked exactly alike since Eve was not created separately but in fact, cloned from her husband. This is an opinion that she did not necessarily agree with and it is a question for further study. With the dispersal of the world population following the breakup of the Tower of Babel scheme, there was opportunity for the normally submerged recessive genes to be expressed. Science calls this the "founders principal". We shall not dwell on it here but to state that genetic variation is more prevalent in smaller family or tribal groups over several generations of inbreeding due to the concentrations and combining of the recessive genes for physical characteristics. To return now to Ham, Shem and Japheth, each with there own different physical characteristics. After the great flood of Noah, The three sons and their families began to spread out from the Mt. Ararat site in Turkey. Over a period of time (this is documented in Genesis chapter 10, called The Table of Nations) the generations of each founding son spread across the earth in different directions. The Japhetic tribes moving north and west into central Europe, the Hamatic tribes south and west into Africa and the eastern Mediterranean areas, although one of them, the Hittites, became entrenched in Turkey and western Asia. The Semites concentrated themselves in the Middle East. The Japhetic nations have been identified as the Greeks, the Russians, German, Armenia and Dardanians. These are more or less the ancestors of the Caucasian and Aryan "races", having spread later into the Americas, South Africa and the islands of the sea. The descendents of Shem (Semites) are the Hebrews, Persian, Syrian, Assyrian, and all the Arab nations. From the tribes of Ham (Hamites) came a more confused lineage but in general he founded the Egyptians, Ethiopians, Canaanites and Libyans. The Negro tribes are probably Hamites, and The Mongol tribes, though hard to trace also favor a Hammatic origin. The Hamites are particularly interesting to Americans, as it is probable that the American Indian is a descendent of this founder. More could be said here about the three streams concerning their characters but that is outside the scope of this essay. In summary, it can be said that there is one human race of people. The human race can be characterized to some extent into three physical generalities. What is commonly called "races" today are a reflection of the three founding fathers of the people of the world from whom the streams of civilization spread out. To learn more about the founders of modern man it is worth your while to read the Genesis accounts of the Flood, and the Tower of Babel.
