In the Septuagint — the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, 3rd–2nd century BCE — the translators used the Greek form Iauan for Javan, showing they understood it as the name of their own ancestors.
The Ionians were one of the four major tribes of ancient Greece, alongside the Dorians, Aeolians, and Achaeans. They lived in western Anatolia (Asia Minor) — in cities like Miletus, Ephesus, and Smyrna — as well as the Aegean islands and parts of mainland Greece including Attica and Athens. Ancient historians such as Herodotus and Thucydides traced the spread of Ionian colonies from Greece to Asia Minor — the very lands biblical writers called "the isles of Javan."
Ancient DNA studies from Harvard (2017–2023) show that Mycenaean Greeks and Illyrians both descend from the same Bronze-Age Balkan and Steppe populations. Genetic continuity across Albania, northern Greece, and western Macedonia is very high — meaning today's Albanians and Greeks share ancient Balkan ancestry. So while classical Greek culture developed separately, its biological roots are heavily Illyrian-Balkan.