If you read Genesis 9:21-25 very carefully, you will realize that it is a very ambiguous verse that raises a number of questions and problems. Such complexities have led modern biblical critics to speculate on the entanglement of numerous sources and textual corruptions that might have generated such confusion, or to speculate that something might have changed in an earlier version of human history. Indeed, this brief account presents the following challenges in terms of interpretation.

Firstly, in all genealogies, the Bible systematically lists the male children according to their birthright. In the following verses, the birth order of Noah's children is as follows: Shem, Ham, and Japheth

• Genesis 5:32 "After Noah was 500 years old, he became the father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth"

• Genesis 7:13 "In the selfsame day entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah's wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, into the ark"

• Genesis 9:18 "The sons of Noah who came out of the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth."

Note that this order is also consistently repeated in several non-canonical Books classified as apocrypha.

• "And in the twenty-fifth jubilee Noah took to himself a wife, and her name was Emzara, the daughter of Rakeel, the daughter of his father's brother, in the first year in the fifth week: and in the third year thereof she bare him Shem, in the fifth year thereof she bare him Ham, and in the first year in the sixth week she bare him Japheth." |The Book of Jubilees, chap. 4:33|

• "And she bare unto him three sons. Shem, Ham, and Japhet." |The Book of Adam and Eve, chap. 3-1:8|

• "As to those three sons of Noah, the first of them is Shem; the next is Ham; and the third is Japhet." |The Book of Adam and Eve, chap. 3-3:5|

And, if we were to apply the genealogy of Noah's sons in accordance with the biblical context, that is, Shem (the firstborn), Ham (the secondborn), and Japheth (the youngest), the expression “his youngest son” would then refer to Japheth. 

• "And unto Shem, the father of all the children of Eber, the elder brother of Japheth, to him also were children born." |JPS Tanakh 1917|

• "And Shem, Japheth’s older brother, also had sons. Shem was the father of all the sons of Eber." |Holman Christian Standard Bible|

• "Unto Shem also, the father of all the children of Eber, the brother of Japheth the elder, even to him were children born. |King James Bible|

​​​Interestingly, in Genesis 10:21, all Bibles clearly state that Shem is the elder brother of Japheth. Only the King James Bible seems to suggest that Japheth is the eldest, and most experts and scholars rely on this vague insinuation to teach Japheth's birthright as an established fact.

Something is clearly amiss, and it is obvious that changes must have been made to the original text to create such a contradiction.

You be the judge, and we encourage you to do your own research.