If there is one word in the Bible that has caused confusion it’s, Gentile. It seems that any Scripture containing a word we see as Gentile was also difficult for early editors; the Greek words, which caused problems, are Ioudaios, Ioudaia, ethnos and hellEn. The Hebrew words goy (guim: singular) goyim (e. guim’ plural) and the Latin gens and gentilis all translated with great diversity.
Three basic errors caused much of the confusion. By believing the Greek words Ioudaios and Ioudaia were essentially the same they mixed-up a people and where they lived: they wrongly interpreted the meanings of the Greek and Hebrew words; ethnos and goy: and confused the French word gentil with its later English variant Gentile.
By not knowing the locations of Israel-Ephraim after their captivity, as they were now hidden by God in ‘the nations,’ editors of early translations thought the people visited by the Apostles were nations of different peoples. So, they mistakenly created a group known as Gentiles, believing anyone who was not a Gentile was a Jew, as current dictionary definitions show.
The Concise Oxford: Gentile: a person who is not Jewish: heathen. Webster’s New Collegiate favours: (1) a person of a non-Jewish nation or of non-Jewish faith (2) of or relating to the nations at large as distinguished from the Jews; also: of or relating to Christians as distinguished from a Jew.
They also use the word Jew(s) to describe ancient Israel and Israelites, which is just plain wrong. The second definition also makes all Christians, Gentiles when Christians are found in every nationality on the planet, and many of them descend from Ephraim. As Paul said, a Jew is a person professing …the Jews’ religion it did not, and does not mean, a race or ethnic group. So, to tidy up who and what a Gentile is, it all started with the Commission of Paul.
But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way: for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles and kings, and the children of Israel. The King James and all other Bibles translate the Greek ethnos as Gentile, but the later Young’s Translation gives the more accurate rendition:
And the Lord said unto him: be going on, because a choice vessel to me is this one, to bear my name before nations and kings, the sons also of Israel. (Acts 9:15) Young’s Literal Translation 1862.
Early translators used the word gentile to describe all peoples other than those termed Jews: in other words, if you weren’t a Jew, you were a Gentile. They took great liberties translating the Greek word ethnos a variety of ways: gentiles 93 times, heathen 5 times, nation 64 times, people twice, and with the greatest inconsistency also used the Greek word hellEn (a Greek or Greek adopter) which they also randomly turned into Gentiles.
Ethnos, from which comes ethnic,meaning a nation or race cannot be applied to an individual for the obvious reason a person cannot be called a race or nation. The thought that an individual can be called a gentile is a misunderstanding of the original word, whether Hebrew or Greek. But here it gets a little tricky, because the French word gentil, which today means ‘kind’, is Gentile when translated into English. Its root is the Latin gentilis, which earlier meant race, nation or stock.
So, the English word we know as Gentile comes from the Latin, gens and gentilis and the French gentil meaning …a selected clan or race of the same stock (or pertaining to). The Greek word ethnos and the Hebrew goy means exactly the same thing: gens, ethnos and goy all describe a race or people. The word we see as gentile is not a Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek word and its use has distorted much of the message of the New Testament.
Reconciling Hebrew, Greek and Latin, contributed much to the discrepancies we see today and has effectively created a non-people; an obscure non-Israelite people called Gentiles. But Paul’s mission was to go to a clan or race of the same stock: the Nations and these nations comprised Israelites. The answer to Paul being sent to the nations is in Genesis. When we read the following, we will see the pattern and ordering of the LORD’S blessing to Abraham.
Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for the father of a multitude of nations have I made thee. And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee. And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee and to thy seed after thee. (Gen: 17: 5-7)
The ordering of the promise is nations, kings, followed by thy seed after thee. The same pattern is found in the anointing of Paul. The family line of Abraham is Isaac, followed by Jacob whose name was changed by the LORD to Israel. So the commission to Paul reads: nations, kings, and Israel. The nations Paul was sent to, be the very same people Jesus sent the Apostles to: But go rather to the lost sheep of the House of Israel. (Matt 10:6)
The LORD instructed the twelve to go to Israel with the good news of His Kingdom. History shows where the Apostles went in order to fulfill this command, and there we will find, not Gentiles, but the nations of Israel-Ephraim. Peter, Paul and James wrote to them, not to an imaginary populace.
The Apostles and Paul, also took the Gospel to others that would listen, to other nations and peoples, but strange as it may appear, not one of them were called Gentiles; but Greeks, Romans, Parthians, Scythians, the people of Mesopotamia, and those who lived in Corinth and Philippi, to name a few. Yet, when Greek, Latin and later, old French were wrongly translated, they were miraculously turned into Gentiles and there they remain and will stay. Well, in the Bible that is. There is no race or people called Gentiles today, and in fact there never was…
For Charlene, my wonderful sister in Christ,
In peace and love as always,
James