Where Did the Different Races and Ethnicities Come From?
The Origins of Humanity
“And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech… Let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech. So the LORD scattered them broad from thence upon the face of all the earth…” Genesis 11:1, 7-8
There are various theories of how the different races began. The position that we take is that at the tower of Babel, when the Lord confused the people through language, that He divided them along ethnological, linguistic and theological lines.
We believe it is at this point that not only did the different languages begin, but also the different nations and races. Before this time all people were united and could speak the same language. However, at the tower of Babel, we have the beginning of the various nations of the world including linguistic differences and racial differences.
Genesis 10 is called the Table of Nations, because it tells where the descendants of Noah’s three sons settled in the world. This settling into the human race from the three sons of Noah occupied quite a number of years.
Genesis 10:5 is simply a reference to the places where they settled by nation and by language. Genesis 11:1 goes back prior to any differences in languages and tells us how those differences came about at the Tower of Babel.
