Secret City #3 - Part 3 of 4 parts

Where Did the Stampede of Pigs Drown?

Does Mark and Luke disagree with Matthew?

There is no disagreement, because these three Gospel writers do not care to give us this unimportant detail. Instead, they name particular regions of people for THEOLOGICAL REASONS.

The Oval Gathering-Place in Gerasa

Mark and Luke highlight the region of Gerasa, as a stand-in for the people of the Decapolis (Ten Towns) generally. These pagan lovers of Roman Government and all things Roman reject Jesus, therefore rejecting their own salvation. This will not change until God sends the Christians into the pagan and Jewish sectors of Asia Minor.

The Ruins of the City of Magdala

Matthew highlights the region of Gadara, which was deeded by God to the Hebrew tribe of Gad, after the conquest of Canaan. This situation will not be corrected until the return of Jesus to rule his kingdom on earth.

But some of our Bibles have a third location -- Gergesa. How did that happen? Here is a map which gives Gergesa's easterly location.

The Sea of Galilee and the Golan Heights

Christian scholars have found the reason for this corruption of the Bible text--an interesting story indeed. We begin with a look at an early Christian scholar and theologian, Origen of Alexandria (a huge city in Egypt), also known as Origen Adamantius, who lived from 184 to 253 AD. Origen had available a team of secretaries to copy his works, making him one of the most prolific writers in all of antiquity. He was a father of the Church, one of the most imortant Christian theologians of his time.

But here we relate one of Origen's failures. Origen was taveling throughout the Holy Land, using the Gospels as if they were an atlas--a tourist guide, so to speak. (This opposes the Gospel writers, who were writing about the Good News, not geography.) He was looking for the place where Jesus sent a huge herd of pigs crashing into the Sea of Galilee. He encountered Gerasa in the Gospels of Mark and Luke, but considered that impossible, for Gerasa was 26 miles from the lake. Likewise in the Gospel of Matthew, he encountered Gadara, but that city was 6 miles from the lake.

He set out to search for the "true" location of the pig stampede, examining the shoreline of the Golan Heights for a cliff over which the pigs may have fallen. The closest he could come was the nondescript village of Gergesa. Here is a wide-angle view of the general area:

Luke writes that "A large herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside." The above view could readily fit Luke's description. 

Here is the "cliff" that Origen found, looking north toward the village of Gergesa. Let's take a better look, looking from the lake eastward toward this rocky outcropping:

The Steep Slope South of the Village of Gergesa

Here is that outcropping that faces the sea. Now Mark's Gospel says "the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned."

I'm trying to imagine two thousand pigs hurtling over this outcropping. Perhaps they lined up and took turns--but that would take quite a while.

In any case, Origen's belief that this was the site for the pig stampede eventually made it into the text of some of the Gospel manuscripts, when over-zealous copyists attempted to "correct" the original text of the Gospels. 

Next week I will share some of the reasons I don't believe Gergesa was the site of the pig stampede, and I will reveal the more likely "Secret City" where all this took place.