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{{short description|Biblical character, son of Japheth}}
{{Other uses}}
{{distinguish|Tuval}}
'''Tubal''' ({{langx|he|תֻּבָל}}, ''Tuḇāl''), in [[Book of Genesis|Genesis]] 10 (the "[[Table of Nations]]"), was the name of a son of [[Japheth]], son of [[Noah]]. Modern scholarship has identified him with [[Tabal (state)|Tabal]]. Traditionally, he is considered to be the father of the [[Caucasian Iberians]] (ancestors of the [[Georgians]]) according to primary sources. Later, [[Saint Jerome]] refashioned the Caucasian Iberia (Georgia) into the [[Iberian Peninsula]] (Western Europe) and [[Isidore of Seville]] consolidated this idea.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gabilondo |first=Joseba |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8vVKDwAAQBAJ&dq=tubal+georgia&pg=PA78 |title=Before Babel: A History of Basque Literatures |date=2016-04-01 |publisher=Barbaroak |isbn=978-1-5308-6832-2 |language=en}}</ref>

==Modern scholarship==
Modern scholarship has identified the biblical Tubal with [[Tabal (state)|Tabal]], an Anatolian state and region mentioned in Assyrian sources.<ref name="MilgromBlock2012">{{cite book|author1=Jacob Milgrom|author2=Daniel I. Block|title=Ezekiel's Hope: A Commentary on Ezekiel 38-48|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LDpNAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA10|date=14 September 2012|publisher=Wipf and Stock Publishers|isbn=978-1-61097-650-3|page=10}}</ref><ref name="Payne2012">{{cite book|author=Annick Payne|title=Iron Age Hieroglyphic Luwian Inscriptions|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Tb4mzSQ2nJoC&pg=PA8|date=17 September 2012|publisher=Society of Biblical Lit|isbn=978-1-58983-658-7|page=8}}</ref>

[[Tabal (state)|Tabal]] was a post-Hittite [[Luwian]] state in [[Asia Minor]] in the 1st millennium BC. Its neighbours, the [[Mushki]], are traditionally associated with [[Meshech]].<ref name="Block1998">{{cite book|author=Daniel I. Block|title=The Book of Ezekiel, Chapters 25–48|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=amZyCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT291|date=19 June 1998|publisher=Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing|isbn=978-1-4674-2371-7|page=291}}</ref> Some historians{{Who|date=January 2017}} further connect Tabal and Tubal with the tribe on the Black Sea coast later known to the Greeks as [[Tibareni]],<ref>Toumanoff, Cyril (1963).&nbsp;Studies in Christian Caucasian History. Georgetown University Press. p.&nbsp;56.</ref> although this connection is uncertain. The Tibareni and nearby tribes, the ''Chalybes'' (Khalib/Khaldi) and the [[Mossynoeci]] (''Mossynoikoi'' in Greek), were sometimes considered the founders of [[metallurgy]]. The Greeks considered the Tibareni to be a [[Scythian]] people.<ref>{{Cite journal |last= |first= |last2= |date=2012-01-01 |title=Tabal, an 'out-group' definition in the first Millennium BCE |url=https://www.academia.edu/2951102/Tabal_an_out_group_definition_in_the_first_Millennium_BCE |journal=G. Lanfranchi et al. (eds.), Leggo, Fs F.M. Fales, Wiesbaden}}</ref><ref name=Scholiast>Schol. ad Apoll. Rhod. 2.378, 1010</ref><ref name=Xeonophon>{{Cite AnabasisX|5.5.2}}</ref><ref>''[[Periplus of Pseudo-Scylax]]''</ref><ref name=Stephanus>{{cite Stephanus|''s.v.'' Τιβαρηνία}}</ref> 

Most reference books, following [[Josephus|Flavius Josephus]], identify Tubal in [[Ezekiel|Ezekiel's]] time as an area that is now in Turkey.<ref name="RingWatson2013">{{cite book|editor1=Trudy Ring|author1=Noelle Watson|author2=Paul Schellinger|title=International Dictionary of Historic Places: Volume 3: Southern Europe|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Qcr9AQAAQBAJ&pg=PA288|date=5 November 2013|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-134-25958-8|page=288}} "The Hebrew Bible also mentions both Tubal (Tabal) and Meshech (Muski)"</ref>

==Early theories==
Many authors, following the Jewish historian [[Josephus]] (1st century AD), related the name to ''Iber''- [[Kingdom of Iberia (antiquity)|Caucasian Iberia]]. Concerning the question of the ethnic affinity of the population of Tubal, Josephus wrote: "Tobal gave rise to the [[Tibareni|Thobeles]], who are now called Iberes" - Caucasian Iberia.<ref>Rapp, S. H. (2003) Studies in medieval Georgian historiography : early texts and Eurasian contexts / by Stephen H. Rapp Jr. Lovanii: Peeters. p.139</ref> This version was repeated by Patriarch [[Eustathius of Antioch]], Bishop [[Theodoret]], and others. However, [[Jerome]], [[Isidore of Seville]], and the Welsh historian [[Nennius]] stated another tradition that Tubal was ancestor to not only Iberians, but also the 'Italians' [i.e., Italic tribes] and 'Spanish' [who were also called Iberians]. A divergent tradition recorded by [[Hippolytus of Rome]] (3rd century) lists Tubal's descendants as the "Hettali" (or [[Thessalians]] in some later copies), while the ''[[Book of the Bee]]'' (c. 1222) states that he was progenitor of [[Bithynia]]ns.

Tubal's sons are given different names in rabbinic sources. In [[Pseudo-Philo]] (written c. AD 70), his son's names are ''Phanatonova'' and ''Eteva'', and they were given the land of "Pheed". The later mediaeval ''[[Chronicles of Jerahmeel]]'' gives these sons' names as ''Fantonya'' and ''Atipa'', and says they subdued "Pahath"; elsewhere these chronicles include information derived from Jerome, identifying Tubal's descendants with Iberia and Hispania. In still another place, the ''Chronicles of Jerahmeel'' reproduces a more detailed legend taken from the earlier ''[[Josippon]]'' (c. 950): Tubal's descendants, it says, camped in [[Tuscany]] and built a city called "[[Sabines|Sabino]]", while the [[Kittim]] built "Posomanga" in neighboring [[Campania]], with the [[Tiber]] river as the frontier between the two peoples. However, they soon went to war following the [[rape of the Sabines]] by the Kittim. This war was ended when the Kittim showed the descendants of Tubal their mutual progeny. A shorter, more garbled version of this story from ''Yosippon'' is also found in the later ''[[Sefer haYashar (midrash)|Book of Jasher]]'', known from c. 1625, which additionally names Tubal's sons as ''Ariphi'', ''Kesed'' and ''Taari''.

==Later theories==

Basque intellectuals like Andrés de Poza (16th century) have named Tubal as the ancestor of [[Basques]], and by extension, the Iberians. The French Basque author [[Augustin Chaho]] (19th century) published ''The Legend of Aitor'', asserting that the common patriarch of the Basques was [[Aitor]], a descendant of Tubal.

According to [[Catalan myths and legends|Catalan legend]], Japheth's son Tubal is said to have sailed from [[Jaffa]] with his family and arrived at the [[Francolí (river)|Francolí]] river of the [[Iberian Peninsula]] in 2157 BC, where he founded a city named after his son ''Tarraho'', now [[Tarragona]]. He then proceeded to the [[Ebro]] (like Iberia, named after his second son ''Iber''), where he built several more settlements, including [[Amposta]]. His third son's name is given as ''Semptofail''. Noah himself is said to have visited them here about 100 years later. Tubal is said to have reigned for 155 years, until he died while preparing to colonize [[Mauretania]] and was succeeded by Iber. 

Other traditions make Tubal son of Japheth (sometimes confounded with [[Tubal-cain]] son of Lamech, a figure from before the flood) to be the founder of [[Ravenna]] in Italy, [[Setúbal]] in Portugal, and [[Toledo, Spain|Toledo]] and many other places in Spain. Various authors state that his wife's name was Noya, that he was buried at [[Cape St. Vincent]] in Portugal, or that he had 65,000 descendants when he died.<ref>[https://archive.org/details/briefhistoryofsp00stev/page/4 <!-- quote=tubal +iberus. --> ''A Brief History of Spain'' (1700)]</ref> The source for many of these legends seems to have been the ''Pseudo-Berosus'' published by [[Annio da Viterbo]] in 1498, now widely considered a forgery. However, the earlier ''Chronicle of San Juan de la Peña'' by the historian-king [[Pedro IV of Aragon]] (c. 1370) includes the basic premises, that Tubal was the first person to settle in Iberia, that the Iberians were descended from him as Jerome and Isidore had attested, and that they had originally been called ''Cetubales'' and been settled along the Ebro, before changing their name to 'Iberians' after that river. 

An earlier scholar-king, [[Alfonso X of Castile]] (c. 1280), also included similar details in his history, but claiming Tubal had settled in the [[Aspe peak|"Aspa" mountains]] (part of the [[Pyrenees]]), and deriving the first part of the name ''Cetubales'' from ''cetus'', which he said meant "tribe". In his version, they later changed their name to '[[Celtiberians]]'.  A still earlier version is found in the history of the [[Umayyad conquest of Hispania]] by [[Tariq ibn Ziyad]], written around AD 750 by Abulcasim Tarif Abentarique.  It holds that Japheth's son Tubal or (Sem Tofail) divided Iberia among his 3 sons &mdash; leaving his eldest Tarraho the northeast section (called ''Tarrahon'', later Aragon); to his second son, Sem Tofail the younger, he left the west, along the ocean (later called ''Setúbal''); and to his youngest, Iber, he left the eastern part, along the Mediterranean, called ''Iberia''. Tubal then built for himself a city he called ''Morar'' (today [[Mérida, Spain]]) &mdash; where Abentarique claimed to have seen a large stone above the main city gate inscribed with these details, which he translated into Arabic.

The Arabic dictionary ''Taj al-Arus'' by al-Zubaidi (1790) notes that although some Islamic authors make the [[Khazars]] descendants of Japheth's son Khasheh (Meshech), others hold both the Khazars and [[Saqaliba]] (Slavs) to have come rather from his brother, Tubal.<ref>D. M. Dunlop, ''History of the Jewish Khazars'' 1954, p. 13.</ref>

[[Benjamin Martin (lexicographer)|Benjamin Martin]], an 18th century [[Lexicography|lexicographer]] who compiled one of the early English dictionaries, published in his study on natural philosophy the ''Bibliotheca Technologica'' that Tubal "is affirmed to be the father of the Asiatic Iberians".<ref>Martin, Benjamin (1737). ''Bibliotheca Technologica'', or, a Philological Library of Literary Arts and Sciences. The British Library; p. 288</ref>
The [[Kingdom of Iberia (antiquity)|Caucasian Iberians]] were ancestors of modern [[Georgia (country)|Georgians]]. Some modern Georgians also claim descent from Tubal, [[Togarmah]] and [[Meshech]]; a Georgian historian, [[Ivane Javakhishvili]], considered [[Tabal (state)|Tabal]], Tubal, Jabal and Jubal to be ancient Georgian tribal designations.<ref>Ivane Javakhishvili. "Historical-Ethnological problems of Georgia, the Caucasus and the Near East" (a monograph), Tbilisi, 1950, pp. 130–135</ref>

== See also ==

* [[Tabal (state)|Tabal]]

== Literature ==
* Ivane Javakhishvili. "Historical-Ethnological problems of Georgia, the Caucasus and the Near East" (a monograph), Tbilisi, 1950, pp.&nbsp;130–135 (in Georgian) 
* [[Giorgi Melikishvili]]. "About the history of ancient Georgia" (a monograph), Tbilisi, 1959, pp.&nbsp;9, 13, 14, 18, 72–78, 108–110, 121, 175, 226, 227, 253 (in Russian)
* [[Simon Janashia]]. "Works", vol. III, Tbilisi, 1959, pp.&nbsp;2–74 (in Georgian)
* [[Guram Kvirkvelia]]. "Foreign scientists about the metallurgy of the ancient Georgian tribes" (a monograph), Tbilisi, 1976, pp.&nbsp;3–90 (in Georgian, Russian summary).
* Nana Khazaradze. "The Ethnopolitical entities of Eastern Asia Minor in the first half of the 1st millennium BC" (a monograph), Tbilisi, 1978, pp.&nbsp;3–139 (in Georgian, Russian and English)
* *[https://archive.org/details/crnicauniversal00pujagoog/page/n327 <!-- pg=41 quote=idubeda tubal. --> Electronic edition of G. Pujades, ''Crónica Universal del Principado de Cataluña''] (in Spanish)
* Jon Ruthven. ''The Prophecy That Is Shaping History: New Research on Ezekiel's Vision of the End.'' Fairfax, VA: Xulon Press, 2003. {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20110726010152/http://www.jon-ruthven.org/rosh.pdf]}}. A major study on the [[historical geography]] of Rosh, [[Meshech]], Tubal and the other northern nations listed in Ezekiel 38–39 and elsewhere.

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

{{Sons of Noah}}
{{Ancient Georgians}}
{{Authority control}}
[[Category:Hebrew Bible nations]]
[[Category:Book of Genesis people]]
[[Category:Japheth]]
[[Category:Basque mythology]]
[[Category:Iberians]]
[[Category:Noach (parashah)]]