The Deceptive Use of the Word Gentile in Scripture

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The Scriptures were originally written in either Hebrew or Greek, not English. What translators do, is just that, translate the original languages into - in our case - English. To do this, the translators should use English words, not Latin words.

The word Gentile is a Latin word, gentilis and it meant, at the time of the Roman occupation of Palestine, "non-Roman citizen" not nation, the Greek word ethnos it is translated for.

There was/is no need to use a Latin word when translating into English the Greek or Hebrew words, ethnos or goy respectively, as there is an English word that can and should be used to translate these two words - that word is, nation. Nation is the English word that means goy or ethnos, not Gentile. English translations are just that, English translations, not Latin translations. The word Gentile does not mean nation in the first place, which is what the two words in the original languages mean.

If we were to use the Latin word Gentile in Genesis 12:2 we'd get this:

2 And I will make of thee a great Gentile, (goy) and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:

instead of:

2 And I will make of thee a great nation, (goy) and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:

and in Genesis 25:23 we'd get this:

23 And the LORD said unto her, Two Gentiles (goyim) are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger.

instead of this:

23 And the LORD said unto her, Two nations (goyim) are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger.

Did Yahweh promise to make Abram a great Gentile and was Jacob and Esau two Gentiles in Rebecca's womb? Ridiculous, just as ridiculous the other renderings are, except when one has a universalist theology and an agenda.

In the New Testament we have the Greek word ethnos used in Luke 7:

"He (the Roman Centurion) loveth our ethnos, and hath built us a synagogue." The jews would never praise anyone for loving the Gentiles: and the Centurion would not have built a synagogue for the Gentiles. So, to avoid absurdity, the translators were forced to translate ethnos correctly, as nation." See Who Are the Gentiles?

Further, the translators used the Latin word Gentile about 600 years after the original Greek word ethnos and hundreds if not thousands of years after the Hebrew word - goy were used in the original texts.

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