Gentiles or Greeks?

NJA said:

Why is the word Hellēn translated "Gentiles" here rather than "Greeks" (as elsewhere)?

"Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me: and where I am, thither ye cannot come.
Then said the Jews among themselves, Whither will he go, that we shall not find him? will he go unto the dispersed among the Gentiles, and teach the Gentiles?" (John 7:34-35)

(Gentiles is normally ethnos)
My only guess is that it was used of educated gentiles and because they percieved he had wisdom they suggested he would seek an intellectual elite which they couldn't be a part of because they didn't understand him.

Click to expand...

Seems to be a translation issue. The word "Gentiles" is only in the KJV. The NKJV, HCSB, and ESV all have "Greeks". I'd chalk it up to a KJV inconsistency.

The dictionary shows (as God intended) that all mankind outside of the Israelite people are called Gentiles (of a worldly gender); and at biblical time it was the Grecian empire.

There was still Greeks and their language!

NJA said:

Why is the word Hellēn translated "Gentiles" here rather than "Greeks" (as elsewhere)?

"Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me: and where I am, thither ye cannot come.
Then said the Jews among themselves, Whither will he go, that we shall not find him? will he go unto the dispersed among the Gentiles, and teach the Gentiles?" (John 7:34-35)

(Gentiles is normally ethnos)
My only guess is that it was used of educated gentiles and because they percieved he had wisdom they suggested he would seek an intellectual elite which they couldn't be a part of because they didn't understand him.

Click to expand...

Another explanation might be that the phrase "dispersed [Gr. diaspora] among the Greeks" is an idiomatic expression for "Gentiles". That, at least, is what I understand from the commentary on this passage from John Chrysostom (a 4th century Greek writing in Greek about the Gospels): "What is 'the dispersion of the Greeks'? The Jews gave this name to other nations, because they were everywhere scattered and mingled fearlessly with one another." (Homily 50 on Matthew)

Admittedly, though, this is pretty thin. Interesting observation you make. Thanks for sharing!

We need to keep in mind that Greeks refers to those people, while Gentiles is a reference to the whole world beyond Israel.

The word used for Greek/Gentile is Ελληνων/Ελληνας and obviously that has the meaning of Greek like the people, but could also refer to Hellenized Jews as the Hellenistic culture had spread pretty much everywhere, most people had adapted some form of Hellenization. Though because the term diaspora is used in connection, it probably means Jewish communities within close proximity to Greece, whether Anatolia, or Macedone, or the mainland of Greece itself.