Jesus drives out the demons into swine question

[promethius]

That may be existentially true, but not practically.

Jesus commands the demons to “go out of” the person.

The demons asked to be “sent into” the herd of swine.

These are forms of metaphorical speech. If you read Fr Amorth’s “An Exorcist Tells His Story”, or “The Rite: the Making of a Modern Exorcist”, or even the defrocked priest Fr Martin’s “Hostage to the Devil”, you will find that they… all considered to be authorities on exorcism and demonology, ALL make specific point to mention that the demon is not located physically inside of somebody.

There are many Biblical instances of an Angel “inhabiting” a limited space in the form of a person. This is completely possible for the angels, both good and bad. Being that angels are higher forms of existence than humans, it stands to reason that they are capable of anything we are, and much more beyond. Because they are Spirits does not mean they are disabled when compared to us. For that matter we have souls, which are spirits, and yet we “inhabit” this body.

We have dual natures in the form of spirit AND soul. Angels and, by extension, demons, have ONLY spiritual natures. Thus while angels may APPEAR to us in human form, that is in appearance only. St Gabriel was not PHYSICALLY present to Mary in some sort of hybrid angel/human body during the annunciation, he APPEARED to her. Same goes with every appearance of Angels… they are physical APPEARANCES of that which is solely spiritual.

 

[fred_conty]

The other incidents of Jesus driving out demons from a human, they did not ask to inhabit someone else or something else. In other cases, they just left and the only proof that the devil vacated was that the person returned to being normal again.

But in this case, they just didn’t leave but went into several thousand pigs. My personal view on this is that Jesus wanted to VISUALLY prove that there were that many demons in that man. This would remove any doubt that the behaviour of the man was not due to some mental defect, but that it really was coming from thousands of demonic beings.
So this event would show that there were devils, maybe thinking of all those later in christianity who would doubt that the devil existed.

The erratic behaviour of the pigs was necessary to show that the demons had actually entered the pigs. How else would there be proof demonic presence if the pigs only went about their normal buisness?

The demons asking permission to enter the pigs shows that they may not do anything with out God’s allowing them. It shows that Jesus controls what goes on in this world and the other. But to me the question resolves itself by understanding that the demons are just evil seeking to destroy and hurt whereever they can. In this case, it fit the plan of Jesus to show the reality of demons.

Just a thought.

 

[GEddie]

That may be existentially true, but not practically.

Jesus commands the demons to “go out of” the person.

The demons asked to be “sent into” the herd of swine.

There are many Biblical instances of an Angel “inhabiting” a limited space in the form of a person. This is completely possible for the angels, both good and bad. Being that angels are higher forms of existence than humans, it stands to reason that they are capable of anything we are, and much more beyond. Because they are Spirits does not mean they are disabled when compared to us. For that matter we have souls, which are spirits, and yet we “inhabit” this body.

No, we do not inhabit our bodies, we are bodies. Our soul is spiritual, but it is the soul of a body.

We are different in kind, not just degree ( of intellect, etc.) from Angels. Being reduced to pure spirit would indeed be disabling to a human being. As CS Lewis said, “A two legged horse is maimed, but not a two legged man.”

ICXC NIKA

 

[AmbroseSJ]

No, we do not inhabit our bodies, we are bodies. Our soul is spiritual, but it is the soul of a body.

We are different in kind, not just degree ( of intellect, etc.) from Angels.

ICXC NIKA

Is the soul of a body somehow located in space more than an angel? Are there degrees of “spiritness?”

 

[GEddie]

Is the soul of a body somehow located in space more than an angel? Are there degrees of “spiritness?”

Your soul is spatially located in your body, at least while you can breathe.

Angels are not associated with any place or substance; your soul is the soul (life) of your body.

Even in death, your soul remains fitted for your body, and will be reinstated to your pneumatikon soma.

ICXC NIKA!

ICXC NIKA

 

[Monky]

These are forms of metaphorical speech. If you read Fr Amorth’s “An Exorcist Tells His Story”, or “The Rite: the Making of a Modern Exorcist”, or even the defrocked priest Fr Martin’s “Hostage to the Devil”, you will find that they… all considered to be authorities on exorcism and demonology, ALL make specific point to mention that the demon is not located physically inside of somebody.

We have dual natures in the form of spirit AND soul. Angels and, by extension, demons, have ONLY spiritual natures. Thus while angels may APPEAR to us in human form, that is in appearance only. St Gabriel was not PHYSICALLY present to Mary in some sort of hybrid angel/human body during the annunciation, he APPEARED to her. Same goes with every appearance of Angels… they are physical APPEARANCES of that which is solely spiritual.

---

I never knew that Malachi Martin was a defrocked priest. I thought that he applied for, and was granted release from his vows and from membership in the Jesuit order (with the exception of his vow of celibacy).

Also, humans have one, and only one, nature, and that is human. Human soul is the form of the human body, yet it possesses a turn, or inclination toward the spiritual, in that it has access to universals.

Demons exhibit a persistent attachment to place. It has been noted in the writings of demonologists, exorcists for two thousand years. It is mysterious, puzzling.

Human soul appears to be “in” human body, as, say, a photon is “in” an electron, is “absorbed” by an electron, is then “emitted” by the electron. A lot of imagination will help.

 

[Caligula616]

Cmon folks, it’s the 21st Century, not the superstitious Bronze Age. There’s no such thing as demons and possession. At best this story is a parable.

 

[babs57]

Cmon folks, it’s the 21st Century, not the superstitious Bronze Age. There’s no such thing as demons and possession. At best this story is a parable.

There are many instances of 21st century posessions. The church trains exorcists for a reason.

 

[babs57]

Also, it is my understanding that we are a “living soul”. That is… we are our soul in space and time. I see us as more of a caterpillar with a butterfly “inside”.

 

[jcrichton]

Okay, I was listening to the reading yesterday about Jesus driving the demons into the swine herd and then the swine run off the cliff into the sea. Then a question crossed my mind that I wanted to have answered. Why would there be a herd of swine in Israel? I thought jews couldn’t eat pork, so what need would the jews have of the herd?

/now i wait for someone to give me a duh answer

…ever heard of “free market?”

Maran atha!

Angel

 

[Publisher]

Cmon folks, it’s the 21st Century, not the superstitious Bronze Age. There’s no such thing as demons and possession. At best this story is a parable.

I agree with you friend. It is a story the writer of the gospel used to assert Jesus rule as Lord.

I read in 1st century Jewish myth, when a demon was exorcised it was banished to the Abyss, Jesus showed mercy of sorts to the demons by not banishing them to the Abyss but to a herd of pigs which immediatedly went “crazy” and ran into the sea and died…a better fate than being banished to the Abyss.

 

[fred_conty]

Okay, I was listening to the reading yesterday about Jesus driving the demons into the swine herd and then the swine run off the cliff into the sea. Then a question crossed my mind that I wanted to have answered. Why would there be a herd of swine in Israel? I thought jews couldn’t eat pork, so what need would the jews have of the herd?

/now i wait for someone to give me a duh answer

This herd of swine were not within Jewish land holdings. The site was in Jeneseret which did not belong to the Jews. So the swinesmen were not Jews.

Just a thought.

 

[jcrichton]

Cmon folks, it’s the 21st Century, not the superstitious Bronze Age. There’s no such thing as demons and possession. At best this story is a parable.

…yeah… and guns don’t kill people!

Maran atha!

Angel

 

[jcrichton]

I agree with you friend. It is a story the writer of the gospel used to assert Jesus rule as Lord.

I read in 1st century Jewish myth, when a demon was exorcised it was banished to the Abyss, Jesus showed mercy of sorts to the demons by not banishing them to the Abyss but to a herd of pigs which immediatedly went “crazy” and ran into the sea and died…a better fate than being banished to the Abyss.

…and in 21st century myth mothers world-wide have been given the right to kill their children in their womb and call it women health–yeah no demon possession there!

Maran atha!

Angel

 

[Faithdancer]

They were across the lake from Capernaum, which, at the time, was a territory controlled largely by gentiles. It’s not like all of Israel as we currently know it today was homogenously Jewish… after all, Jesus has MANY run ins with various gentiles throughout the region. (and, in fact, the Romans probably had plenty of pork in the area as well as the local gentiles)

Source on the Capernaum bit

Good answer. The population of Galilee was indeed a mix of Jews and Gentile pagans in the time of Christ.

 

[patrick457]

Good answer. The population of Galilee was indeed a mix of Jews and Gentile pagans in the time of Christ.

Actually, the Galilee is Jewish. I quote from E.P. Sander’s The Historical Figure of Jesus:

In the Galilee of Jesus’ day (about 4 BCE to 30 CE), the political arrangements were the same as they had been before Herod’s death. Antipas governed Galilee as his father had governed a much larger state, and on the same terms and conditions: he paid tribute, cooperated with Rome and maintained public order. In return Rome protected him against invasion: not by stationing troops in the country or on the borders, but by the implied threat of retaliation against invaders. Locally, Antipas could do whatever he wished, as long as the main conditions were fulfilled. For example, he minted his own coins – one of the principal signs of ‘independence’.
Antipas, like his father, was fairly observant of the Jewish law. He had his palace decorated with figures of animals, which many Jews regarded as a transgression of the commandment prohibiting graven images; probably he regarded his palace as his own business. His coins, however, bore only agricultural designs, which Jews considered acceptable. There is no indication in any of the sources that he tried to impose Graeco-Roman customs and organizations on the Jewish populace. The institutions in the towns and villages in Galilee were thoroughly Jewish. The gospels imply that there were synagogues in all the small towns and villages. Schools were Jewish, and Jewish magistrates judged cases according to Jewish law. 9. In Scythopolis, which had a very large Gentile population, there were of course Gentile officials and institutions. Scythopolis is in geographical Galilee, but politically it was not under Antipas’ jurisdiction. It was an independent city, as it had been since Pompey liberated it from Jewish control in 64 BCE. See Emil Schürer, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ, revised by Geza Vermes and Fergus Millar (hereafter HJP), vol. 2, 1979, pp. 142-5.]
If Herod was a good king, on balance, Antipas was a good tetrarch. He adequately fulfilled the main conditions of successful rule. From Rome’s point of view, this meant that he paid tribute, did not allow civil unrest and defended his borders (we shall note an exception to this last point just below). Consequently, Rome did not have to intervene in Galilee, and Antipas kept the Jewish citizenry and Roman troops from coming into conflict.

…] Since so many readers and scholars of the New Testament have imagined Jesus living in a context in which the populace was daily oppressed by Roman soldiers and officials, and some scholars are now claiming that there was a substantial Gentile population in the Jewish cities, I wish to re-emphasize the actual situation. 23. I deal more fully with some of these topics, especially the question of Graeco-Roman institutions, in my forthcoming paper ‘Jesus in Historical Context’, Theology Today, Oct. 1993 or Jan. 1994.] In Galilee there was no official Roman presence at all. Greek-speaking Gentiles lived in the cities that they had long inhabited, which formed a kind of crescent around Galilee: there were Gentile cities to the east, to the north, and to the west. 24. See further ch. 8 below.] In geographical Galilee there was one Gentile city, Scythopolis, but it was independent of political Galilee. In Judaea the official Roman presence was very small. There was one Roman of rank in residence, and he was supported by a handful of troops. This Roman and his small military force lived among a lot of other Gentiles in Caesarea, seldom came to Jerusalem, and did nothing to plant Graeco-Roman laws and customs in the Jewish parts of the country. In Jerusalem there was not a substantial Gentile presence. In place of the image of Roman soldiers patrolling the towns and villages of Palestine, forcing Jews to carry their burdens, and motivating shopkeepers and farmers to cater to their tastes, we should think of a few Roman soldiers, banded together, living in or around one city, with only very small outposts occupying forts in potentially hostile territory. Effective rule was in the hands of local aristocrats and elders.

I also recommend Mark A. Chancey’s The Myth of a Gentile Galilee.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...lestine.gif/435px-First_century_palestine.gif

 

[patrick457]

Quoting Sanders again, this time from his paper Jesus in Historical Context:

Galilee in Jesus’ Day: When Herod died, one of his ablest sons, Antipas, inherited Galilee–home of Nazareth, where Jesus lived. Jesus was perhaps two or three years old when Antipas came to power. Antipas was not king, but had a lesser title: tetrarch, “ruler of a fourth,” that is, a fourth of Herod’s kingdom. Antipas ruled on the same four terms and conditions as his father, meeting them all, except for a little slip, which I shall explain below. Therefore, Rome left him alone. Rome did not send officials to govern Galilee, nor did Roman troops occupy Galilee.

People who imagine that, in the Roman empire, Romans actually governed and policed every substantial city, that Roman or Greek bureaucrats kept good Roman records, and that Roman magistrates enforced Roman law, have not only failed to read Roman imperial history, they have failed to contemplate the question of numbers. There were not enough able Romans to spread around in such a prodigious way. And, besides, why should they exercise such heavy supervision? All they really wanted from a place like Palestine was loyalty and secure borders. They wanted to Romanize Gaul–modern France–and they did so to a considerable degree, but they had no such ambition in Palestine. New Testament scholars and others frequently attribute to the Romans of Jesus’ day the objectives that Hadrian, a hundred years later, may have had: to homogenize the empire and to make it all Greco-Roman in culture. 40. Schalit, König Herodes, p. 421, calls this desire “the will of Rome” in Herod’s day.] It is, however, an error to attribute this ambition to Julius Caesar, Augustus, or Tiberius.

Herod’s heir, Antipas, also lacked the desire to change the entire culture of his domain. In matters that touched the populace as a whole, he observed the Jewish law. He did not put his face, or that of Augustus, or later that of Tiberius on his coins. 41. Meshorer, Ancient Jewish Coinage, vol. 2, pp. 35-41.] He did not build gymnasia; there were no Greek schools. He may have built a theater in his first capital city, Sepphoris, 42. A theatre has been found at Sepphoris, but the date of its construction is still uncertain. See Eric Meyers, Ehud Netzer, and Carol Meyers, “The Roman Theater at Sepphoris,” Biblical Archaeologist 53 (1990), pp. 190-191; the same three authors, Sepphoris, Winona Lake, 1992, p. 33; Stuart Miller, “Sepphoris, the Well Remembered City,” Biblical Archaeologist 55 (1992), pp. 77-78. Some of the scholars in our sketch two regard the matter as settled: Jesus attended the theatre in Sepphoris. See e.g. Batey, Forgotten City, p. 90.] and possibly in his second capital, Tiberias. There was no reason not to do so, since his father had built a theater near Jerusalem. But the populace of both cities was Jewish. Sepphoris was a Jewish city of long standing, 43. See, for example, Antiq. 13.338, where the city is said to have been loyal to the Hasmonean king Alexander Jannaeus.] and there is no indication whatsoever that Antipas offered bribes to gentiles in and around Palestine to move to Sepphoris, though he doubtless used some gentiles in the way his father had. Even the city of Tiberias, named in honor of the new emperor, which Antipas built from the ground up, was settled mostly by Jews. Since part of it was over a cemetery and since Jews tended to avoid corpse impurity, Antipas had to force high ranking Jews to move there, and he attracted others by various devices (Antiq. 18.36-8). Corpse impurity was not a problem for gentiles, and, had gentiles been his preferred settlers, he would not have needed special exertions to populate his new capital. Tiberias was predominantly Jewish at the time of the great Jewish revolt against Rome, which erupted in the year 66. 44. See for example Josephus, Life, 32-42, 354.]

There was, however, one time when Antipas failed in his responsibilities as a client ruler. He decided to marry his half-niece, Herodias, who was already married to another of her half-uncles. 45. For the full story, see Antiq. 18.109-119.] According to the New Testament, John the Baptist was severely critical of the move (Mark 6.18). So were Antipas’ first wife and her father. The first wife (whose name is unknown) managed to avoid divorce by crossing the border to her father, Aretas, who was an Arab king. Sometime later, Aretas took advantage of a border dispute to invade Galilee and thrash Antipas’ army. The Galilean populace thought that this was just retribution, because, meanwhile, Antipas had executed John the Baptist, who was a highly revered prophet. Aretas’ army did not run into a Roman legion, for the good and simple reason that there were no Roman troops in Galilee. Antipas was a client ruler, and he had his own army. If Jesus healed the servant of one of Antipas’ centurions (as Matthew tells us), it was not a Roman centurion.

 

[patrick457]

(Continued)

The Roman army did, however, react to Aretas’ invasion. Not only were the client rulers responsible to their patron, the emperor, but Rome reciprocated by taking care of its clients. And so, after some slow communications, a force of Roman troops was sent from Syria to punish Aretas for invading Rome’s good ally. To make a long story short, the emperor died, orders were suspended, and Aretas got away, but the point is clear, nonetheless. 46. Antiq. 18.115,120-25.] The nearest substantial body of Roman troops was Syria, where there were four legions, 20,000 to 24,000 men, plus cavalry, perhaps another 5,000. 47. On the number of legions in Syria, see HJP, voI. 1, p. 362 & n. 42; J. G. C. Anderson, “The Eastern Frontier under Augustus,” The Cambridge Ancient History 10 (1934), pp. 279-83. I derive the number of cavalry by inference from War 3.66: During the Jewish revolt 18 cohorts of infantry and five ala of cavalry came from Syria (about 2,500 cavalrymen). Eighteen cohorts was about one-half the number of legionaries stationed in Syria, and so I assume that one-half the total cavalry came as well. A ratio of five to one is about right, as the same passage in Josephus indicates.] Aretas was no fool. When he invaded Galilee, he was not attacking the Roman army. And when it bestirred itself, he fled.

So, in Jesus’ Galilee, a good and able Jewish tetrarch ruled. He used Jewish troops, presumably mixed with some Idumeans (from his grandfather’s native country) and probably enhanced with foreign mercenaries–as were most armies of the day. His governors and magistrates were Jews. On the whole, in Antipas’ Galilee, which was Jesus’ Galilee, the law was Jewish, the courts were Jewish, the education was Jewish. Wherever there was a sizable number of gentiles, of course, their rights were respected: they were not forced to Judaize. 48. Most gentiles in geographical Galilee lived in the territory that belonged to Scythopolis, which was not governed by Antipas.]

In order to clarify the extent and the non-extent of Romanization and Hellenization in Palestine, I wish now to offer one more analogy: post-war Germany. The British and Americans (I shall ignore the French) established armies of occupation in Germany after the second world war. Because of the cold war, large concentrations of English-speaking troops have resided in Germany ever since. Moreover, Germany is a frequent place of tourism for Americans. Finally, most German children study English for several years in school. The consequence of all this is that a lot of Germans know a lot of English. There has been far more Anglo-American influence in Germany than there was Greco-Roman influence in Palestine. Yet, if there arose a German evangelist who had a message for the villagers, he would not go to the small churches of the towns and villages and speak English. Much less would he speak in English aphorisms. If by some chance he wandered onto an American military base, and was stopped by the MPs, he might be very glad that he could speak and understand a little English, but otherwise he would not have much use for the language. I believe that the application to Jesus is clear enough. Some scholars propose that he taught in Greek, and specifically in Greek aphorisms.

According to the old view of Jesus’ context, which is now in retreat, the Pharisees really ran everything in Galilee. No matter what anyone at the time thought, and no matter who governed, we know (scholars in the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth centuries have said) that actually the Pharisees were in charge. Everybody was afraid of them, and they always got their way. This view is unsupportable. 49. See Sanders, Judaism, pp. 388-402, 458-72. For other scholars, beginning with Morton Smith, who have held this view, see p. 401 and 535, n. 45.] As a case in point, note the relationship between Antipas and the Pharisees. Although, like his father, Antipas generally observed the Jewish law, he did one thing that was rather sneaky. He decorated his own palace in Tiberias with the images of animals. Antipas, as we have indicated, kept the law in matters touching the populace, but he doubtless considered the decoration of his palace to be his own business. At any rate, when the revolt against Rome broke out, the Jerusalem war cabinet wanted the palace destroyed, but some sailors and poor people, led by Jesus son of Sapphias, looted and burned the palace before it could be dismantled in an orderly way (Life 65-7). This gives an idea of how much in favor of Greco-Roman art and culture the poor people of Galilee were.

Given the other things we know about Antipas–his change of marital partners and his execution of a respected prophet–does anyone seriously want to propose that the Pharisees encouraged Antipas to break two of the ten commandments (graven images, adultery) and also to execute a prophet? He was not under the thumb of Pharisees. This point, of course, does not answer the widespread supposition that they controlled life in the villages. For that, consider the lengthy arguments that I have presented in Judaism: Practice and Belief, and to some degree the prior arguments of Jacob Neusner and others (see footnote 49).

So, in Jesus’ day, Herod Antipas ruled Galilee as his father had ruled a much larger realm. He did not impose Roman government and law on the Jews; he did not require them to drop the distinctive aspects of their law and their customs, the ones that set them apart from gentiles, and he did not establish Greek educational and Greco-Roman religious institutions throughout his tetrarchy. There was no Roman army in Galilee, and there were no Roman administrators.

 

[fred_conty]

Actually, the Galilee is Jewish. I quote from E.P. Sander’s The Historical Figure of Jesus:

In the Galilee of Jesus’ day (about 4 BCE to 30 CE), the political arrangements were the same as they had been before Herod’s death. Antipas governed Galilee as his father had governed a much larger state, and on the same terms and conditions: he paid tribute, cooperated with Rome and maintained public order. In return Rome protected him against invasion: not by stationing troops in the country or on the borders, but by the implied threat of retaliation against invaders. Locally, Antipas could do whatever he wished, as long as the main conditions were fulfilled. For example, he minted his own coins – one of the principal signs of ‘independence’.
Antipas, like his father, was fairly observant of the Jewish law. He had his palace decorated with figures of animals, which many Jews regarded as a transgression of the commandment prohibiting graven images; probably he regarded his palace as his own business. His coins, however, bore only agricultural designs, which Jews considered acceptable. There is no indication in any of the sources that he tried to impose Graeco-Roman customs and organizations on the Jewish populace. The institutions in the towns and villages in Galilee were thoroughly Jewish. The gospels imply that there were synagogues in all the small towns and villages. Schools were Jewish, and Jewish magistrates judged cases according to Jewish law. 9. In Scythopolis, which had a very large Gentile population, there were of course Gentile officials and institutions. Scythopolis is in geographical Galilee, but politically it was not under Antipas’ jurisdiction. It was an independent city, as it had been since Pompey liberated it from Jewish control in 64 BCE. See Emil Schürer, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ, revised by Geza Vermes and Fergus Millar (hereafter HJP), vol. 2, 1979, pp. 142-5.]
If Herod was a good king, on balance, Antipas was a good tetrarch. He adequately fulfilled the main conditions of successful rule. From Rome’s point of view, this meant that he paid tribute, did not allow civil unrest and defended his borders (we shall note an exception to this last point just below). Consequently, Rome did not have to intervene in Galilee, and Antipas kept the Jewish citizenry and Roman troops from coming into conflict.

…] Since so many readers and scholars of the New Testament have imagined Jesus living in a context in which the populace was daily oppressed by Roman soldiers and officials, and some scholars are now claiming that there was a substantial Gentile population in the Jewish cities, I wish to re-emphasize the actual situation. 23. I deal more fully with some of these topics, especially the question of Graeco-Roman institutions, in my forthcoming paper ‘Jesus in Historical Context’, Theology Today, Oct. 1993 or Jan. 1994.] In Galilee there was no official Roman presence at all. Greek-speaking Gentiles lived in the cities that they had long inhabited, which formed a kind of crescent around Galilee: there were Gentile cities to the east, to the north, and to the west. 24. See further ch. 8 below.] In geographical Galilee there was one Gentile city, Scythopolis, but it was independent of political Galilee. In Judaea the official Roman presence was very small. There was one Roman of rank in residence, and he was supported by a handful of troops. This Roman and his small military force lived among a lot of other Gentiles in Caesarea, seldom came to Jerusalem, and did nothing to plant Graeco-Roman laws and customs in the Jewish parts of the country. In Jerusalem there was not a substantial Gentile presence. In place of the image of Roman soldiers patrolling the towns and villages of Palestine, forcing Jews to carry their burdens, and motivating shopkeepers and farmers to cater to their tastes, we should think of a few Roman soldiers, banded together, living in or around one city, with only very small outposts occupying forts in potentially hostile territory. Effective rule was in the hands of local aristocrats and elders.

I also recommend Mark A. Chancey’s The Myth of a Gentile Galilee.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...lestine.gif/435px-First_century_palestine.gif

Patrick, my apologies, I had the name of the town wrong in my statement. I said:
“This herd of swine were not within Jewish land holdings. The site was in Jeneseret which did not belong to the Jews. So the swinesmen were not Jews.”

The name of the town was not Geneseret, it should have been Gerasa, which is a town in the area known as the Decapolis.

 

[patrick457]

Patrick, my apologies, I had the name of the town wrong in my statement. I said:
“This herd of swine were not within Jewish land holdings. The site was in Jeneseret which did not belong to the Jews. So the swinesmen were not Jews.”

The name of the town was not Geneseret, it should have been Gerasa, which is a town in the area known as the Decapolis.

Either it’s Gerasa or Gadara (both in the Decapolis) or even ‘Gergesa’ depending on which reading you follow.