Gentiles

The term Gentile (from Latin gentilis, by the French "gentil", female: "gentille", meaning of or belonging to a clan or tribe) refers to non-Israelite peoples or nations in English translations of the Bible. Latin and subsequently English translators selectively used the term gentiles when the context for the base term "peoples" or "nations", Hebrew, גוי (goy) and נכרי (nokhri) in the Hebrew Bible and the Greek word ἔθνη (éthnē) in the New Testament, indicated non-Israelite peoples or nations. The term gentiles is derived from Latin, used for contextual translation, and not an original Hebrew or Greek word from the Bible. Following Christianization of the Roman Empire, the general implication of the word gentile became "non-Jew".
Latin etymology
Gentile derives from Latin gens (from which, together with forms of the cognate Greek word genos, also derive gene, general, genus and genesis). The original meaning of "clan" or "family" was extended in post-Augustan Latin to acquire the wider meaning of belonging to a distinct nation or ethnicity. Later still the word came to refer to other nations, 'not a Roman citizen'. After the Christianization of the empire it could also be used of pagan or barbarian cultures.

[edit] In the Bible

In Saint Jerome's Latin version of the Bible, the Vulgate, gentilis was used in this wider sense, along with gentes, to translate Greek and Hebrew words with similar meanings when the text referred to the non-Hebrew peoples.
The most important of such Hebrew words was goyim (singular, goy), a term with the broad meaning of "peoples" or "nations" which was sometimes used to refer to Israelites, but most commonly as a generic label for peoples. Strong's Concordance defines goy as "nation, people, usually of non-Hebrew people, or of descendants of Abraham, or of Israel, or of a swarm of locusts or other animals (fig.) Goyim = 'nations'." Strongs #1471^[1]
In the King James Version, Gentile is only one of several words used to translate goy or goyim. It is translated as "nation" 374 times, "heathen" 143 times, "Gentiles" 30 times, and "people" 11 times. Some of these verses, such as Genesis 12:2 ("I will make of thee a great nation") and Genesis 25:23 ("Two nations are in thy womb") refer to Israelites or descendants of Abraham. Other verses, such as Isaiah 2:4 and Deuteronomy 11:23 are generic references to any nation. Typically the KJV restricts the translation to "Gentile" when the text is specifically referring to non-Hebrew people. For example, the only use of the word in Genesis is in chapter 10, verse 5, referring to the peopling of the world by descendants of Japheth, "By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands; every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations."^[2]
In the New Testament, the Greek word "ethnos" is used for peoples or nations in general, and is typically translated by the word "people", as in John 11:50 ("Nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not."). The translation "gentiles" is used in some instances, as in Matthew 10:5–6 to indicate non-Israelite peoples:

These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.^[3]

In that instance, Gentiles becomes a reference to pagan cultures of the period.
Altogether, the word is used 123 times in the King James Version of the Bible,^[4] and 168 times in the New Revised Standard Version.^[5]

[edit] Early Christianity

Further information: Biblical law in Christianity, Paul of Tarsus and Judaism, Pauline Christianity, Christianity and Paganism, and Jewish Christians

The Greek ethnos where translated as Gentile in the context of Early Christianity implied non-Israelite. There was a question among the disciples whether receiving the Holy Spirit through proselytization would be restricted to Israelites or whether it would include the gentiles (the Greco-Roman population of the Roman Empire), as in Acts 10:34–47:

And they of the circumcision which believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost. For they heard them speak with tongues, and magnify God. Then answered Peter, Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we?"^[6]

Attached to this question was the circumcision controversy in early Christianity, i.e., does a Gentile need to follow all of the Mosaic Laws. The position of the Judaizers was that this was a necessity for salvation, taking Christianity to remain fully within Judaism, including obedience to the Torah Laws. Paul of Tarsus who argued against the Judaizers, on the point that circumcision was necessary for salvation. The Council of Jerusalem decided to give the new converts four things that had to do in order to be able to assemble at the Synagouges every Sabbath to hear Moses read, (Acts 15:1-29). This was done with the understanding that those new believers would go to the Synagouges to hear the Law read every Sabbath and would conform to God's Law after hearing it read to them every Sabbath. This was called the Apostolic Decree (Acts 15:19–29), which may parallel Jewish Noahide Law.

[edit] Modern usage

As in the King James Bible, from the 17th century onward Gentile was most commonly used to refer to non-Jews. This was in the context of European Christian societies with a Jewish minority. For this reason Gentile commonly meant persons brought up in the Christian faith, as opposed to the adherents