Every nation on earth traces back to one of three men. That's the claim Josephus makes in the Antiquities, and he spends two chapters proving it—mapping the seventy nations descended from Noah's sons onto the geography of the known world, name by name, territory by territory.
Japhet had seven sons, and they took everything from the mountains of Taurus and Amanus across Asia to the river Tanais, and through Europe all the way to Cadiz. Gomer founded the Galatians. Magog founded the Scythians. Madai became the Medes. Javan became the Greeks—and from Javan's son Tharsus came Tarsus, the great city of Cilicia. Josephus is meticulous: each son, each grandson, each territory carefully linked.
Ham's children took the south—from Syria to the ocean. Chus became the Ethiopians (still called Chusites in Josephus's day). Mesraim became Egypt—Josephus notes that in his time, Jews still called Egypt "Mestre." Phut founded Libya. And Canaan settled the land that would become Judea, naming it after himself. Nimrod, Chus's son, stayed behind in Babylon and became a tyrant.
Shem's line stretched from the Euphrates to the Indian Ocean. Elam fathered the Persians. Ashur built Nineveh and named the Assyrians. Arphaxad produced the Chaldeans. Aram gave his name to the Arameans—the Syrians. And from Arphaxad's line came Heber, from whom the Hebrews (Ivrim, עברים) took their name.
Josephus then traces the line from Heber through ten generations to Abraham—the tenth from Noah, born 292 years after the Flood. Abraham's father Terah had three sons: Abraham, Nahor, and Haran. Haran died young in Ur of the Chaldeans. Grief-stricken, Terah moved the entire family to Haran in Mesopotamia, where he died at 205.
There's a quiet detail tucked into the genealogy: after the Flood, human lifespans shrank generation by generation, declining steadily until Moses, when God fixed the limit at one hundred and twenty years (Deuteronomy 34:7). The ancient world was fading. But from one line—Shem to Heber to Abraham—the story of Israel was about to begin.