Semitic people or Semites is an obsolete term for an ethnic, cultural or racial group associated with people of the Middle East, including Arabs, Jews, Akkadians, and Phoenicians. The terminology is now largely unused outside the grouping "Semitic languages" in linguistics. First used in the 1770s by members of the Göttingen school of history, this biblical terminology for race was derived from Shem, one of the three sons of Noah in the Book of Genesis, together with the parallel terms Hamites and Japhetites.
The first depiction of historical ethnology of the world separated into the biblical sons of Noah: Semites, Hamites and Japhetites. Gatterer's Einleitung in die Synchronistische Universalhistorie (1771) explains his view that modern history has shown the truth of the biblical prediction of Japhetite supremacy (Genesis 9:25–27). Click the image for a transcription of the text.
1879 statute of the Antisemitic League, the organization which first popularized the term
The concept of race as a categorization of anatomically modern humans has an extensive history in Europe and the Americas. The contemporary word race itself is modern; historically it was used in the sense of "nation, ethnic group" during the 16th to 19th centuries. Race acquired its modern meaning in the field of physical anthropology through scientific racism starting in the 19th century. With the rise of modern genetics, the concept of distinct human races in a biological sense has become obsolete. In 2019, the American Association of Biological Anthropologists stated: "The belief in 'races' as natural aspects of human biology, and the structures of inequality (racism) that emerge from such beliefs, are among the most damaging elements in the human experience both today and in the past."
Hippocrates of Kos
Johann Friedrich Blumenbach
Blumenbach's five races
Engraving depicting what was considered "The Types of Races of Men" by the author.