TruthVid's 100 Proofs that the Israelites were White, Part 16
Here we begin our discussion of point 42 of TruthVid’s 100 Proofs, which concerns the mistranslations or misinterpretations of words found in Scripture, whether they are purposeful or not. William Finck’s prepared notes are found below.
42) Major word mistranslations or misunderstandings that occur repeatedly throughout the Bible.
These mistranslations are systemic in that they are based on a universalist interpretation of Scripture.
Nations or Gentiles?
The Hebrew word goy means nation. The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew lexicon defines it as “1) nation, people 1a) nation, people 1a1) usually of non-Hebrew people 1a2) of descendants of Abraham 1a3) of Israel 1b) of swarm of locusts, other animals (fig.) n pr m 1c) Goyim? = ‘nations’”
So gentile is not even part of their definition for goy, but it is translated in that manner 30 times in the King James Old Testament, half of them in Isaiah.
The Greek word ἔθνος means nation. It is translated 96 times as gentile in the King James Version. On another 5 occasions the word Ἕλλην, which means Greek, is translated as gentile, which is completely dishonest. According to Liddell & Scott, ἔθνος in earliest Greek writing meant a “number of people living together, company, body of men… band of comrades… host of men… of particular tribes… of animals… swarms, flocks…” Then later, “after Homer, nation, people… later, foreign, barbarous nations, opposite to Ἕλληνες… at Athens, athletic clubs of non-Athenians in LXX, non-Jews, Ps. 2.1, al., cf. Act.Ap.7.45; Gentiles… used of Gentile Christians, Ep. Rom.15.27.” Other, more obscure uses of the word are given after these.
While Liddell & Scott always give the definitions of words as they were interpreted in the King James Version, that does not mean that the apostles understood them in that manner. That does not mean that when the apostles wrote ἔθνος, they meant non-Jew or gentile. While ἔθνος appears approximately 150 times in the New Testament, it is often translated as nation or heathen, which is also a quite subjective rendering.