Where do different races come from?

Question

If God killed all the humans before the flood and Noah and his sons had to start the human race again, where do all the different races in this world come from? How do I explain that? I am a Christian and do not know how to answer my own question?

Answer 1

genetic variance. Noah's sons were given ethnic names. Ham means dark. Shem means middle skinned. Japheth means fair. likely, the sons were named for there pigmentation. they may not have been one black, one jew and one blond kid, but atleast they were noticably different.

according to Biblical account, Ham's descendants populated the continent of Africa, Shem's family split into Jews and Arabs, and Japheth's family populated the mediteranian area.

the other races were likely also the result of genetic variance, as each son had a wife, and of course, we do not know which traits were strongest at the time.

Answer 2

If you want a biblical explanation you won't get one. The bible doesn't offer any explanation at all, so you'll just have to assume it happened on its own, or god did it for some reason or other. A scientific explanation is that certain genes are more useful than others in different environments. For example dark skin is very useful in hot countries - it protects you from sunburn. However, it's a disadvantage in northern countries - it blocks out too much light and you can end up with vitamin deficiency. A healthy person is more attractive than an unhealthy vitamin deficient person, so in more northerly countries lighter skin was more likely to be passed on to children. As for other characteristics, genes can change in one area, but not in another. Before the 20th century people rarely traveled more than 50 miles from where they were born. This meant that if in Italy people developed roman noses it was unlikely to travel as far as China in more than a couple of cases. Over time these changes build up and become more and more established. This is why in Africa (where humans are thought to come from) there is a LOT more genetic variation - more so than the rest of the world put together. People have been in Africa a lot longer, so the genetic changes have had more time to build up.

Answer 3

What is a race? Aren't we all genetically humans? Then we are one race. What we see is differences within the same race. Like larger nose, different hair or lighter and darker skin. This can happen over a short time of humans traveling and being apart from eachother. Noahs family was middle eastern and was therefore more of a medium skin tone, just give it a few thousand years of migrating and you'll end up with some people looking different.

Answer 4

Here is the truth to where different races come from. The Bible is great, but it's not a perfect source to be taken literally for historical and anthropogoly-related questions.

Due to geological and cultural isolation, different groups of people change differently.

---A brief explanation of evolution: genes in our DNA often and randomly mutate. If the changes are detrimental, the organism dies out, and if they are advantageous, this allele frequency grows (natural selection). There are also random shifts in allele frequencies (genetic drift), similar to how if you flip a coin, it will not land on heads exactly 50% of the time.

Races closer to the equator generally have darker skin, as dark skin helps protect the skin from cancer. On the other hand, those farther away generally have lighter skin, which helps with the production of vitamin D. Furthermore, in colder climates you will often find people with more robust bodies, as this surface-to-area ratio retains more heat.

This explanation does not clash with Christianity at all, though many ignorant people will argue with that (without any real reason).


To FSho's response (two responses down), humans are over 99.9% alike in genetic makeup. We actually share 98% (plus or minus 1%) of our DNA with chimpanzees, our closest relative.

Answer 5

There is only one race - the human race. You've probably heard that a million times but it's true. What we see are surface differences. We are merely variations on a theme - the human theme. It is obvious that the different ethnic backgrounds all came from the same human parents who had the ability to produce the lovely variety we see. There is no such thing biologically speaking as different races. We are merely divisions of mankind possessing in characteristic proportions certain combinations of physical traits that can be inherited and are sufficient to set us apart as distinct. Roughly one "race" developed on each of the five major continents and when isolation and bottlenecking occurred – with ones marrying within the same group, certain combinations of physical traits became "concentrated" as it were. Man diverged linguistically (at the Tower of Babel) which forced him to then diverge geographically (they went off according to their new languages) and that resulted in ethnic divergence since they married within the same group.

It is noteworthy that these physical traits – because they are inherited – can disappear or reappear generation after generation. In other words, a white male can marry a black female and produce children. The child can look like the actress Halle Berry (offspring of a white and black) or the actress Jennifer Beal (offspring of a white and black). Let's say the children marry blacks and produce their own children. And those children grow up and marry blacks as well. Soon enough there is no visible trace of white. The reverse happens as well. This shows that the differences we see are surface differences only. Race as man has defined it – that is to say, dividing up humans in a bunch of silly compartments and assigning inferiority or superiority to them - is a social construct and a fairly ugly one at that.

You may rest assured that God made out of one man every nation of men, according to Acts 17:26.

So there is only one race - the human race. And the human race came from God.

Hannah J Paul

Answer 6

This is one of the areas where science and the Bible are in agreement. Science teaches that as humans spread across the world, they stayed in small groups were the limited gene pools caused them to all begin to look more and more alike. The way the members of a family resemble each other because they share the same genes) Just as each family looks different from others, so each human population is different. The genes for dark skin was present in some populations and not in others. The gene for blond hair was present in some populations and not in others.

The Bible agrees, listing the sons, grandsons and great-grandsons of Noah, where they would move their familes, and each of the different racial groups that would decsend from those children. Read Genesis 11.

Science and the Bible also agree in that science has traced human DNA back to where they now claim all humans came from a single human female. They are not (yet) to track back male DNA. Science is currently referring to that female as "Lucy", where Christians still use the name "Eve".

Answer 7

The different races came from the descendants of Noah. It does not take long for genetic traits to become dominant based upon geographical location. Take, for example, people who would live in Africa where the sun is very direct and there's not as much cloud cover. People with darker skin would survive better because they would not be sunburned and develop skin cancer the way lighter skinned people would.

On the other hand, people in the northern regions, where the sunlight is less direct, would need more vitamin D which is produced by the sunlight hitting the skin. Vitamin D prevents rickets, which is the softening of bones which can lead to fractures and breaks. But people with darker skin in more northern, colder climates would not be able to produce as much vitamin D, and so they would not do as well as people with lighter skin.

The descendants of Noah had all the genetic material necessary to produce the various so-called races as they moved out across the land and went to different locations. Given enough time, those genetic traits that manifested and aided in survivability became dominant, and those genetic traits that manifested but did not help survivability were eventually wiped out.

Please note that I do not affirm the theory of evolution which states that people evolved from lower life forms. But God, in his great wisdom, provided enough genetic information in our genes to aid us in adapting to various needs.

Answer 8

Humans are over 90% alike in biological make up. Our traits such as color and hair etc. are superficial traits. They are like the clothes we wear on our bodies (insignificant). We all have 2 common human ancestors..."He created them male and female and blessed them Genesis 5:2." We are from the same "seed". That is why any two people from any part of the world can produce normal, healthy, human children.

Noe was an early human with traits closer in similarity to our original genealogy - Adam and Eve. People in Noe's day lived longer and stronger that people do today. Many strong variations could have come from this gene pool. Humans weakened over time. If it were not for technology we wouldn't live as long or healthy as we do now. This is part of the consequence for man's sin. The wager of sin is death. That's exactly what it is.

As time went on people spread through out the world and their DNA assimilated because of different variables (climates etc). There were then slight variations of biological character in groups of people. Groups closer to mom and dad had more similar traits. Groups that encompassed the globe began to look like people within that group, yet with unchangeable original characteristics. Groups further assimilated over the generations. This is the ONLY kind of "evolution" we have ever experienced. Not from ape creature to human but from color to color. Thus many superficial (racial) variations of man came into existence over time in this way.

Science only further analyzes the basic truth and principle in the bible.

God bless

Answer 9

Modern man evolved from ape-like men in Africa. About 70 thousand years ago a catastrophic event nearly wiped out humans. This resulted in a Earth with only a few thousand people. This small segment of survivors would enventually re-populate the planet. DNA tests have shown that humans are much more alike than previously thought and the term "race" is unnecessary. Skin color and a few other minor differences are the only things seperating us.

Answer 10

"Race" is not a meaningful biological term. It is entirely a cultural construct. You're as likely to find genetic differences between people of the same "race" as between people from different groups.

The only things constant across a given race are a few superficial characteristics, but even most of those can be present elsewhere.


As for Noah, well, that story was a myth derived from early flood myths (such as the one in the Epic of Gilgamesh). Most Christians do not interpret Genesis as literal history.

Answer 11

wow lots of faulty information there! you're way off!
not all humans were killed from the flood...the flood was sent to the "cosmos" which means a region..not the "eretz" which means terra firma.
this is why the native americans and chinese and others have the flood narative in their histories as well, because they lived through it!

read genesis 6 again..the flood was sent to destroy the offspring of the fallen angels...the giants....and everyone in that region who had inbred with them...noah was chosen because he preserved the lineage of messiah from adam to Enoch to Methusaleh to Lamech to Noah....he was "perfect in his generations" or pedigree....

where did the races come from? From the SIXTH Day creation of men and women! read Genesis again. God said "let US/Elohim/God and the angels make man in OUR/elohim image...and God said go and be fruitlful and multiply upon the face of the earth..and this was the day and the evening of the SIXTH DAY" then God rested on the 7th day...then he created adam and eve.
other races pre-existed adam and eve as we know from archaeology. this is why there were already people in Nod where cain went and took a wife...they had been there 1000's of years before has even born.