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Ashkenaz ( ʾAškənāz) in the Hebrew Bible is one of the descendants of Noah. Ashkenaz is the first son of Gomer, and a Japhetic patriarch in the Table of Nations. In rabbinic literature, the descendants of Ashkenaz were first associated with the Scythian cultures, then later with the Slavic Europe, and, from the 11th century onwards, with Germany and northern Europe, or the Indo-European people, in a manner similar to Tzarfat or Sefarad.
His name is related to the Assyrian Aškūza ( Aškuzai, Iškuzai), the Scythians who expelled the Cimmerians ( Gimirrāi) from the Armenian highland of the Upper Euphrates area.Russell E. Gmirkin, Berossus and Genesis, Manetho and Exodus: Hellenistic Histories and the Date of the Pentateuch, T & T Clark, Edinburgh, 2006 pp.148, 149 n.57.
In , a kingdom of Ashkenaz was to be called together with Urartu and Mannaeans against Babylon, which reads:
Set ye up a standard in the land, blow the trumpet among the nations, prepare the nations against her i.e., call together against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashchenaz; appoint a captain against her; cause the horses to come up as the rough caterpillars.
According to the Encyclopaedia Biblica, "Ashkenaz must have been one of the migratory peoples which in the time of Esarhaddon, burst upon the northern provinces of Asia Minor, and upon Armenia. One branch of this great migration appears to have reached Lake Urmia; for in the revolt which Esar-haddon chastised, the Mannaeans, who lived to the SW of that lake, sought the help of Ispakai 'of the land of Asguza,' a name (originally perhaps Asgunza) which the skepticism of Dillmann need not hinder us from identifying with Ashkenaz, and from considering as that of a horde from the north, of Indo-Germanic origin, which settled on the south of Lake Urumiyeh."
How the name of Ashkenaz came to be associated in the rabbinic literature with the Rhineland is a subject of speculation., Chapter 3, footnote 9.
In rabbinic literature from the 11th century, Ashkenaz was considered the ruler of a kingdom in the North and of the Northern and Germanic peoples. (See below.)
I had been thinking of the God-given alphabet of the Azkanazian nation and of the land of Armenia—when, in what time, and through what kind of man that new divine gift had been bestowed ... Koriun, The Life of Mashtots, Yerevan, 1981. Translated from Old Armenian (Grabar) by Bedros Norehad
Later Armenian authors concur with this. Hovhannes Draskhanakerttsi (10th century) writes:
The sixth son was Tiras from whom were born our very own Ashkenaz Ask'anaz and Togarmah T'orgom who named the country that he possessed Thrace after himself, as well as Chittim K'itiim who brought under his sway the Macedonians. 7. The sons of Tiras were Ashkenaz, from whom descended the Sarmatians, Riphath, whence the Sauromatians Soramatk', and Togarmah, who according to Jeremiah subjugated the Ashkenazian army and called it the House of Togarmah; for at first Ashkenaz had named our people after himself in accord with the law of seniority, as we shall explain in its proper place. Hovhannes Draskhanakerttsi, History of Armenia, Chapter I 6-7
Because of this tradition, Askanaz is a male given name still used today by Armenians.
Later historians (e.g., Johannes Aventinus and Johann Hübner) managed to furnish numerous further details, including the assertion by James Anderson in the early 18th century that this Tuiscon was in fact none other than the biblical Ashkenaz, son of Gomer.James Anderson, Royal Genealogies, Or the Genealogical Tables of Emperors, Kings and Princes (1732) p. 441 (Table 213); also p.442 "The Most Ancient Kings of the Germans". James Anderson's 1732 tome Royal genealogies reports a significant number of antiquarian or mythographic traditions regarding Askenaz as the first king of ancient Germany, for example the following entry:
Askenaz, or Askanes, called by Aventinus Tuisco the Giant, and by others Tuisto or Tuizo (whom Aventinus makes the 4th son of Noah, and that he was born after the flood, but without authority) was sent by Noah into Europe, after the flood 131 years, with 20 Captains, and made a settlement near the Tanais, on the West coast of the Euxine (by some called Asken from him) and there founded the kingdom of the Germans and the Sarmatians ... when Askenaz himself was 24 years old, for he lived above 200 years, and reigned 176. In the vocables of Saxony and Hessia, there are some villages of the name Askenaz, and from him the Jews call the Germans Askenaz, but in the Saxonic and Italian, they are called Tuiscones, from Tuisco his other name. In the 25th year of his reign, he partitioned the kingdom into Toparchies, Tetrarchies, and Governments, and brought colonies from diverse parts to increase it. He built the city Duisburg, made a body of laws in verse, and invented letters, which Cadmus later imitated, for the Greek and High Dutch are alike in many words.
The 20 captains or dukes that came with Askenaz are: Sarmata, from whom Sarmatia; Dacus or Danus – Dania or Denmark; Geta from whom the Getae; Gotha from whom the Goths; Tibiscus, people on the river Tibiscus; Mocia – Mysia; Phrygus or Brigus – Phrygia; Thynus – Bithynia; Dalmata – Dalmatia; Jader – Zadar; Albanus from whom Albania; Zavus – the river Sava; Pannus – Pannonia; Salon – the town Sale, Azalus – the Azali; Hister – Istria; Adulas, Dietas, Ibalus – people that of old dwelt between the rivers Oenus and Rhine; Epirus, from whom Epirus.
Askenaz had a brother called Scytha (say the Germans) the father of the Scythians, for which the Germans have of old been called Scythians too (very justly, for they came mostly from old Scythia) and Germany had several ancient names; for that part next to the Euxin was called Scythia, and the country of the Getes, but the parts east of the Vistula or Weyssel were called Sarmatia Europaea, and westward it was called Gallia, Celtica, Alamanni, Francia and ; for old Germany comprehended the greater part of Europe; and those called Gauls were all old Germans; who by ancient authors were called , Gauls and , which is confirmed by the historians Strabo and Aventinus, and by Alstedius in his Chronology, p. 201 etc. Askenaz, or Tuisco, after his death, was worshipped as the ambassador and interpreter of the gods, and from thence called the first German Mercury, from Tuitseben to interpret.
In the 19th century, the German theologian August Wilhelm Knobel again equated Ashkenaz with the Germans, deriving the name of the Aesir from Ashkenaz. Die Völkertafel der Genesis, (The Table of Nations from the Book of Genesis) (1850) by August Wilhelm Knobel
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