Talk:Shem

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The Messiah is descended from Shem in an unbroken line. This is a very odd statement to be made baldly in an encyclopedia, without any cultural or historical context. Genealogy of the Messiah is a concept that developed somewhere, was expressed in some literature, was important to someone. Even a link to an entry like the Tree of Jesse or something would help. Qumran? I'm at a loss... Wetman 19:46, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)

@ Mustafaa, I know they still talk about the North-East Afroasiatic languages as Semitic, but I suppose my colleagues must be talking about "The Semite" only after I leave the room then. :-) Zestauferov 11:43, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Fair point! I'll change it to reflect that... Mustafaa 17:03, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)

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[edit] descended from Shem in straight line?

Jesus was born of a virgin,remember? Joseph was not Jesus's blood father, there is no bloodline from Adam to Jesus, unless Mary herself somehow was descended in a direct line from Shem - which doesn't seem to be mentioned in the bible. Just a thought.

- - I have removed the direct line reference, to avoid confusion. However, in a strict Jewish legal sense, there is indeed a direct line from Adam to Jesus, as Luke outlines (using the word 'supposed' with a nod and a wink), because Mosaic law allows that Joseph is the legal father of Jesus (to the fullest extent of the law), despite him not being the physical father. The rule was first invoked by the daughters of Zelophehad.

Cobblers 13:07, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Mary decended from David through her father right. David decended from Abraham who decended from Shem. Whats the problem? Other than Jesus in accordance to the Bible was truly a decendent straight from God as He was part of God. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.34.227.166 (talk) 09:52, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed revert of this page to 15 July 2007 version

Many now claim that the Anglo-Saxons are the descendants of Shem. This is one of the new contributions to this page that was added to this page since 15 July. I went back through the history trying to find the last version that seemed mainstream, NPOV, and appropriately referenced, and I found this July 15 version. Since that date I have found a number of edits that appear to violate Wikipedia policies, including addition of numerous links to websites that don't satisfy our WP:RS requirements. Since I'm not a regular editor of this page, I don't know what the local standards might be, but the new sources are certainly not suitable. I came here due to this linksearch for www.dhushara.com, a web site that was complained about on the Conflict of Interest noticeboard.

Please comment if you disagree with reverting back to what I consider the last good version. Thanks, EdJohnston 03:52, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Shem as main contributer to Caucasian family tree

In support to the above poster that many now claim (and have for many years) that Anglo-Saxons are decendents of Shem and also the article found saying that the Greeks, Persians also decend from Shem.

It is belief to many that the caucasian race decends from Shem, The Mongoloid race come from Japheth and the Afroid race decend from Ham.

The Armenians and the Aramaic language are from Aram. The Elamites of southwest Iran are from Elam and spoke Elamo-Dravidian. The Chaldeans, Syrians, Jews and Arabs from Peleg (Jews and Arabs are from Abraham who we know came from his fathers city of Ur of the Chaldeans but moved to Canaan and his decendents adopted the canaanite language). The Indo-Aryan / Indo-European races from central Asia are from Joktan. The Asyrians were perhaps from Asshur.

Nimrod building cities in Shinar and then in Assyria does not nessessarily mean that these people came from him as this is a reference when the whole world were one people and not split into tribes. The regions were probably given their names after the nations divided.

There is no evidence to support that Flavius Josephus writings had any grounds of true knowledge behind them other than they were Flavius' own ideas and therefore the many theories based on his writings are far from factual. (unsigned)

Look, all Wikipedia really does (supposedly) is mirror what the actual sources say. Our own editorial points of view are supposed to be irrelevant. We already have Josephus as one source, now if you have any source beside yourself for the things you are saying, then we can look at it. Various authors have disagreed about these things for centuries, but we aren't here to argue about which source we personally agree with or disagree with as being 'factual' - remember that there are also some schools of thought that would argue none of this is factual anyway - hence the concept of "neutrality". We can attribute any relevant POV that is reliably sourced to the author who holds it. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 13:33, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

There are numerous books by Christian theologists that mentions that Shem = Caucasians, Japheth = Mongloids (Turks etc) & Ham = Africans. Perhaps based on the 'Book of Jasher' thing. I'll have to look some up. I can also recall seeing a kids cartoon of Noah and his three children looks like this (forget the last bit as I have spent about an hour trying to find a site that features the cartoon).

[edit] Age at the time of the flood

His age at the time of the flood was not 98. I have corrected this to 99, after considering the six possible orderings in the calendar year of:

* Noah's birthday
* Shem's birthday
* The flood date

As well as the following passages:

Genesis 5:32 - "Noah was 500 years old when he begot Shem..."

Genesis 7:11 - "In the year when Noah was 600 years old ... the rain fell on the earth for 40 days and 40 nights".

Genesis 11:10 - "Shem was 100 years old ... two years after the flood."

From the first two passages, Shem's age at the time of the flood was either 99 or 100 (after considering the six possible orderings of the three events described above). But if the last passage were stating an exact "two years", Shem would be 98 at the time of the flood. Hence, "two years" is an approximation, rounded up.

Mebden (talk) 11:06, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Please read WP:OR, our policy against "Original Research", of which this is the very epitome. In order to use your calculations, they must be cited to some reliable, published source, not to a wikipedian. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 12:09, 14 February 2008 (UTC)