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In both translations of the Hebrew Bible and New Testament, the word generally refers to non-Jews. The word comes from the Latin root gens, which means clan or tribe. The term is used in biblical translation to translate the Hebrew word goy, which means, get this, clan or tribe or nation. It is also used to translate the Greek word ethne (from which English gets the word ethnic), again, a word meaning "a people" or "a tribe." Translations here don't seem to be on shaky ground here, these words all tended to refer to the collective other from the point of view of the speaker. So in biblical translation, the word gentile is used when referring to the others, usually non-Jews, since the Hebrew Bible and most or all of the New Testament was written by, or at least from, a Jewish perspective. Occasionally, the word goy is used in the Hebrew Bible to refer to the Jews or the children Abraham. For example, when God promises that Abraham's children will become a great nation, the Hebrew word goy is used. The word goy was probably used in the Jewish Aramaic of 2000 years ago also, but the evidence we have is from the Greek translation of that Aramaic.

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Kianna Gislason

Lvl 10
3y ago

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