Gentile

Gentile (/ˈdʒɛntaɪl/) is a word that today usually means someone who is not Jewish. Other groups that claim Israelite heritage, notably Mormons, have historically used the term gentile to describe outsiders. More rarely, the term is used as a synonym for pagan. As a term used to describe non-members of a religious/ethnic group, gentile is sometimes compared to other words used to describe the "outgroup" in other cultures (see List of terms for ethnic out-groups).

In some translations of the Quran, gentile is used to translate an Arabic word that refers to non-Jews and/or people not versed in or not able to read scripture.

The English word gentile derives from the Latin word gentilis, meaning "of or belonging to the same people or nation" (from Latin gēns 'clan, tribe, people, family'). Archaic and specialist uses of the word gentile in English (particularly in linguistics) still carry this meaning of "relating to a people or nation." The development of the word to principally mean "non-Jew" in English is entwined with the history of Bible translations from Hebrew and Greek into Latin and English. Its meaning has also been shaped by Rabbinical Jewish thought and Christian theology.

"Gentile" derives from Latin gentilis, which itself derives from the Latin gens, meaning clan or tribe. Gens derives from the Proto-Indo-European *ǵénh₁tis, meaning birth or production. 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'.

In Saint Jerome's Latin version of the Bible, the Vulgate, gentilis was used along with gentes, to translate Greek and Hebrew words with similar meanings when the text referred to the non-Israelite peoples. The most important of such Hebrew words was goy (גוי‎, plural, goyim), a term with the broad meaning of "people" or "nation" which was sometimes used to refer to Israelites, but with the plural form goyim tending to be used in the Bible to refer to non-Israelite nations. Other words translated in some contexts to mean "gentile/s" in the modern sense were the Biblical Hebrew word nokhri (נכרי‎ – often otherwise translated as 'stranger') and for the New Testament Greek word éthnos (ἔθνος). The first English translators followed this approach, using the word "gentile" to refer to the non-Israelite nations (and principally using the word "nation(s)" to translate goy/goyim in other contexts). See the "Christianity" section.

These developments in Bible translation practice were related to developments in Jewish Rabbinical and Christian thinking which – in the centuries after the Old and New Testament were written – created an increasingly clear binary opposition between "Jew" and "non-Jew". The Hebrew word "goy" went through a change in meaning which parallels the journey of "gentilis/gentile" – both words moving from meaning "nation" to "non-Jew" today. The word "Goy" is now also used in English, principally by Jewish people – see goy.

In 2006, the academic David Novak wrote, with limited exceptions, "The Bible can be seen as one long discussion of what differentiates Israel from all the other peoples of the world."

The Hebrew Bible does not have a word which directly corresponds to the modern concept of a gentile (see etymology above). Instead, the Bible views different groups of gentiles in different ways. Novak states that, "The biblical categories of Gentiles, beginning with those farthest removed from a relationship with Israel and moving up to those closest to a relationship with Israel, seem to be: (1) the Amalekites; (2) the seven Canaanite nations; (3) the nations of the world; (4) the Samaritans; (5) slaves; (6) resident aliens; (7) proselytes."