Editing Gentile (section)

==Etymology==
{{See also|Gens|Goy}}
"Gentile" derives from Latin ''[[wikt:gentilis|gentilis]]'', which itself derives from the Latin ''[[gens]]'', meaning clan or tribe. ''Gens'' derives from the [[Proto-Indo-European language|Proto-Indo-European]] [[wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/ǵénh₁tis|''*ǵénh₁tis'']], meaning birth or production.<ref>"Kind"; in: M. Philippa e.a., Etymologisch Woordenboek van het Nederlands</ref> 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'.<ref name="lyell">{{cite book |title=Paul of Tarsus Apostle to the Gentiles |editor-last=Lyall |editor-first=Ian |publisher=Pedia Press |page=48 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=B5yMsKyqCUgC&dq=vulgate+gentilis&pg=PA48}}</ref>

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 {{lang|he-Latn|goy}} ({{Script/Hebrew|גוי}}, plural, {{lang|he-Latn|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.<ref name="Ophir & Rosen Zvi" /> Other words translated in some contexts to mean "gentile/s" in the modern sense were the Biblical Hebrew word ''nokhri'' ({{Script/Hebrew|[[wikt:נכרי|נכרי]]}} – often otherwise translated as 'stranger') and for the New Testament Greek word ''[[Ethnic group|éthenē]]'' ({{lang|grc|ἔθνη}}). 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 [[#Christianity|the "Christianity" section]].

These developments in Bible translation practice were related to developments in Jewish Rabbinical and Christian thinking<ref name="Ophir & Rosen Zvi" /> which – in the centuries after the Old and New Testament were written – created an increasingly clear binary opposition between "Jew" and "non-Jew".<ref name=Zvi>Online abstract published for {{cite book | last1=Ophir | first1=Adi | last2=Rosen-Zvi | first2=Ishay | title=Goy: Israel's Multiple Others and the Birth of the Gentile | publisher=Oxford University Press | date=2018-07-19 | isbn=978-0-19-874490-0 | doi=10.1093/oso/9780198744900.001.0001 |url=https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780198744900.001.0001/oso-9780198744900}}</ref> 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]].