What is the meaning of gentile?

Answer 1

From a biblical sense, the word 'gentiles' means 'nations'-a term used by the Israelites to denote all foreign (non-Israelite) peoples. Thus, the term gentile would typically designate anyone who is not a descendant of Abraham through Isaac and Jacob.

Today, many consider the term to mean anyone that is not a Jew. But this is incorrect as the House of Israel consists of 12 tribes of which Judah is only one.

It is like saying that I, as a New Yorker, am an American but not all Americans are New Yorkers. So it is that Jews are Israelites but all Israelites are not just Jews.

Answer 2

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.

Answer 3

Someone who is not Jewish.

Used to refer to non-Israelite peoples or nations in The Bible such as Greeks, Egyptians, Philistines, etc.

Answer 4

These are the people who were not Jewish in Jesus' day.

You were either a Gentile or a Jew.

Answer 5

Non-Jewish people.

A Jewish person is one whose religion is Judaism. A Gentile can become a proselyte to Judaism. So you mean a non Israelite.