Should the word "Gentile" be capitalized?

I've read some texts and versions of the Bible using the capitalized form of Gentile and others using just a lowercase version. I couldn't find any standards on its usage.

Solution 1:

When used as an adjective meaning ‘of or pertaining to any or all of the nations other than the Jewish’, the OED states that ‘it is now usually written with capital initial’. Similarly, it says of the noun meaning ‘one of any nation other than the Jewish’, it is ‘usually with capital G’.

Solution 2:

Gentiles are not a specific group. They are everyone who is not Jewish. They do not represent any particular ethnicity, belief system, national group, or ideology — other than being not Jewish.

Words with a similar scope are "pagan," "heathen," and "foreign." Even though "pagan" and "heathen" could be taken as representing a very coarsely defined type of religion, they do not represent distinct groups or belief systems. I think most people would agree that these words should not be capitalized.

The online dictionaries that I checked show "gentile" as a lowercase word, in contrast to other proper nouns such as "Jew" that they display capitalized:

• Merriam-Webster (but says, "often capitalized")
• Dictionary.com
• Oxford Living Dictionaries
• Cambridge Dictionary

Based on this evidence, it's safe to treat "gentile" as a standard lowercase word.