St. George vs. Greek Redefinitionism

Senator Rogers and I have had a nice exchange of emails.
His platform is very popular here in Georgia. Basically anything that can be done to make undocumented immigrants' lives in Georgia difficult - so that they leave - is a good idea and will protect us, and the US, from their foreign influences: talking chihuahuas, bean farts, majong, voter fraud, etc. I think that the problem is very real but that the solutions being pushed by the Republican party do not so much resolve the problem, as they punish the immigrant (undocumented and documented). The Catholic church has spoken for a more humane policy and I am saddened that more churches are not speaking out. I was reading in Mundo Hispano that the Catholic church has seen a decline in attendance by over a third for their evening service in Spanish. No doubt the Baptists are elated that the papists are losing members because of road blocks in Gwinnett and Hall counties, but that is for another blog.

Aren't we all wetbacks in our baptism? Doesn't Paul speak of there being "neither Greek nor Jew"?

My objections to these bills are purely religious, again and again we are reminded to treat the alien in our midst as one of us. KJV words it, "do not vex the stranger" which I find kinda cool. STOP VEXING! But we also have Jesus and his parable about sheep and goats and other examples; wasn't Jesus an undocumented alien in Egypt? Perhaps if they had deported him back there wouldn't have been all the confusion about the coming of the Son of Man.

THE MAIN POINT is that Greek in the hands of somebody with an agenda is a dangerous thing. I remember how I wanted so bad for the word in Matthew 21:36 "pleioterous" to mean greater not numerically but in stature. If this was the case then the parable would be a metaphor for God sending lesser prophets, then greater prophets, and finally the greatest Prophet of them all Jesus. Prof. Bartlett held out some hope by saying it was possible although he seriously doubted it; Prof. Johnson said I was just plain nuts. So I didn't get my way with Greek, "pleioterous" just means greater numerically.

On to the Greek lesson.
My email to Sen. Rogers (edited so as not to bore you with my tedium)

As a seminarian, I find the Biblical witness to how we are to treat the strangers in our midst, unequivocal in its teachings. The laws are already on the books to accomplish what SB 20 addresses. Peace of Christ, George Tatro

His response (Remember that this is about Greek, not about his political position and so I have deleted the political stuff. He claims a much more moderate position than the critics of his policies would have you believe - no doubt the truth lies somewhere in the middle .)

Finally, while not a seminarian, I am quite familiar with many biblical passages and their original meanings. The passage you refer to is Ephesians 2:19. The term "Sojourner" (or Foreigner) comes from the original word "Paroikos". The actual original definition is "an alien who dwells as a sojourner in a land without the rights of citizenship."


My response.

My point remains that the Biblical witness to the alien in our midst is unequivocal. I didn't know that I was going to have to draw on my Greek exegetical resources as I was actually not thinking of Ephesians as much as I was Leviticus 19:33-4 and Matt. 25. Your understanding that the "actual original definition is 'an alien who dwells as a sojourner in a land without the rights of citizenship'" for the use of "paroikoi" in Ephesians 2:19 is not lifted up in Bibleworks, nor Sakae Kubo's Greek Lexicon, nor in Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words. They all fail to make this distinction - they all simply state that the word means "alien or stranger"; I will have to run this by Prof. David Bartlett, Professor of Greek at Columbia Theological Seminary (he has written lots of books and is very knowledgeable about Greek), with whom I will be reading the Bible in Greek for the final course of my seminary career - it starts in March and I am really excited.

The point being that we take from the Bible what we want and are pretty sure that we have it right. I just don't want to be so right that there is no room for the HS to work on me. I think it is probably better to err on the side of treating our neighbors as we would want to be treated and I think that the OT and the NT are pretty clear about what constitutes good neighborliness.
Anyway I am not going to change his mind. I am as close to changing his mind as he is to convincing me to move from Decatur to Woodstock (which he represents). And I may not know much about policy writing and law making as I do about rule breaking and break-dancing, but I do know a little Greek. And I know that there are too many white people in Woodstock and that makes me nervous. I think I would have named Woodstock, Laommi. (Hosea 1:9)