Tubal - Modern Theories

Modern Theories

Basque intellectuals like 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.

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 Yosippon (c. 950): Tubal's descendants, it says, camped in Tuscany and built a city called "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 Book of Jasher, known from c. 1625, which additionally names Tubal's sons as Ariphi, Kesed and Taari.

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.