The Hebrew word goyim was, and still is, used to refer to nonJews. In most versions of the Bible, goyim is translated “Gentiles.”
Some versions translate it as “the nations” or “heathen,” but it always means “non-Jews.” In the Old Testament, it is usually a derogatory term, since non-Jews were “outside the covenant”—idol worshippers, people who did not serve the true God, Israel’s God. But some of the Hebrew prophets hinted that, in the future, Gentiles would come to serve Israel’s God.
This occurs in the New Testament. The first Christians were Jews, but soon the faith attracted Gentiles. Acts 15 describes the fuss made when Jewish Christians insisted that Gentiles be circumcised before they became Christians.
In other words, they insisted that being a Christian means being a Jew also. This was not the position the Christians finally adopted.
The apostle Paul, a Jew, called himself the “apostle to the Gentiles” and traveled around the Roman Empire, preaching the faith to both Jews and Gentiles—but generally being better treated by the Gentiles.
The more Gentiles were drawn to Christianity, the more the Jews came to dislike the new faith.
Paul insisted that Christianity was the fulfillment of the Jewish religion, and in his letters he spoke of Gentile Christians as being “the new Jews,” God’s chosen ones. According to Paul, Jesus broke down the old barrier between Jews and Gentiles (Rom. 10:12; Eph. 2:11–18).
Of the many people who wrote the Bible, the only one who was (probably) a Gentile was Luke, author of Acts and the Gospel that bears his name.
See 118 (circumcision).
