Gerasa, Gadara, Gergesa: Where did Jesus Land?

ANSWER: NONE OF THE ABOVE.

Matthew 8:28 (KJV): "region of the Gergesenes"
Mark 5:1 (NASB): "region of the Gerasenes"
Luke 8:26 (KJV): "region of the Gadarenes
But there's more to it than that: See below.

Fanciful Conception of  the Swine Stampede

DITCH THE CLIFF:

First of all, there is not and never was a cliff overhanging the Sea of Galilee. The Greek word kremnou does stem from a root that means "overhang," but it is used in Greek just as often for a "steep hill" or "steep bank."

Nevertheless, one of the earliest church scholars and theologians, Origen Adamantius, toured the Holy Land in the Third Century using the Bible as an atlas, intending to walk in the footsteps of Jesus. There are plentiful hints in both Mark and Luke as to where Jesus might have landed when he was confronted by the two demonized men. (Mark and Luke are interested in only one of them, the one who wanted to follow Jesus.) 

But Origen was dissatisfied with the locations he found in the gospels, and stayed tightly focused on the supposed overhanging cliff. The best he could find was a location near the almost unknown village of Gergesa. This is the first clue that Origen had a hand in the confusion of scholars over the place where Jesus landed. Here's what the banks above the Sea of Galilee look like:

A Steep Bank Above the Sea of Galilee

DITCH THE TOWN

Starting with Origen and down through the ages--even today--scholars have made the same mistake. They think that the writers of the Gospel are trying to teach us geography, when they had something much bigger in mind. The Gospels are about the coming of the Son of God to bring salvation to the world.

GERASA: Mark was probably the first to write about this in the Greek language, and his version of the locality was followed also by Luke's Gospel. They wrote, "They came to land in the region of the Gerasenes." Notice that they are talking about people not places. These people are fans of Roman rule, benefiting from the Pax Romana which brought peace, order, and dependable laws. Each of the towns of the region were granted the status of a polis, sort of a Roman city-state with its own people in charge of the laws.

Gerasa was the most notable of the Ten Towns, in recognition of their steadfast loyalty to Rome. One hundred years after Jesus passed through here, Gerasa's citizens supported the Romans in their many wars and enforcement actions against the Jews of Galilee and Jerusalem. After the victory of Rome, the visit of emperor Hadrian to Gerasa was preceded by the building of a commemorative Arch, which never fell down completely and now has  been restored. It stood well outside the city, perhaps in hopes that the city would be expanded to reach it.

The Arch of Hadrian at Gerasa

Where is Gerasa?

But there's a problem for these scholars that I mentioned: Gerasa is south and east of the Sea of Galilee, THIRTY MILES AWAY! This was especially a problem for Origen, who found it referenced in the Gospel but thought it the least likely of the three places for the miracle of the swine. He complained, "Gerasa did not border on either sea or lake."

But for the two evangelists--Mark and Luke--the important point to make was that Jesus' ministry even extended  to hard-core Roman-loving peoples, and highlights their focus on the demonized man that was not only freed from a legion of demons but also carried the salvation message of Jesus back to his home town and his own people.

GADARA

The Gospel of Matthew, whose focus was on evangelizing Jews and showing the Old Testament support for Jesus as the great Messiah, expands his story to include both of the demonized men who rushed Jesus, but then drops many details which applied to the man featured in the other two Gospels. And instead of identifying the people of the area as being "of the region of the Gerasenes," he changes it to "Gadarenes."

Referring to Gadara, Matthew highlights the Old Testament background for the area. Gad was one of the twelve tribes of Israel, and the city of Gad (later Gadara) was the northernmost reach of land assigned to this tribe by Moses. Instead of sending in an evangelist to the local residents, Matthew reminds his Jewish readers that the land already belongs to them, as assigned by Moses.

Where is Gadara?

Good news: Gadara is not thirty miles from the Sea of Galilee. Bad news: Gadara is six miles from the Sea of Galilee. It's not like Jesus and his disciples would be immediately noticed by a city six miles away.

However, the historian Josephus refers to Gadara as possessing territory which lay on the border of the Sea of Galilee. Also, ancient coins bearing the name "Gadara" will often portray a ship on the coin, unlikely if there were no seashore within Gadara's territory.

This was not good enough for Origen, who found "Gadarenes" in some of the Gospel manuscripts he had access to. Here's what Origen said about this:

Having  been "on the spot to trace the footprints of Jesus," argued Origen, "the Evangelists, men who had a careful knowledge of the Geography of Judea, would not have uttered a lie that is so evident and easy to refute."

Note: If you guessed Gadara as the correct location, you get a half point. If you selected Gadara because you were familiar with Josephus' description of it, you get two points. But again, Gadarenes are mentioned by Matthew for their theological import, not for the geographical curiosity of his readers.

GERGESA

This obscure village is too small to be a Roman polis, so it would have to be in the general Decapolis territory to accommodate Mark and Luke's stories. The nearest polis is Hippos, many miles south. Today's Bible maps often show the northern border of Decapolis extending to Gergesa, but this may be influenced by the mention of Gergesa in some Bible versions. It is just as likely, and much more administratively logical, that Gergesa was within the territory of Herod Philip, who had charge over nearby Bethsaida.

But Origen thought that Gergesa was the best fit, primarily for the steep banks he found, but also for the meaning of the word Gergesa itself, "the dwelling of those that have been driven away." Origen wrote that the name "contains a prophetic reference to the conduct shown the Savior by the citizens... who besought him to depart out of their territory."

So, how did "Gergesa" end up in some of our Bibles? Scholars have been pointing a finger at Origen himself. With the encouragement of Origen, some manuscripts were transcribed with Origen's "correction" to the most likely locale (in his opinion), and the descendants of these manuscripts, copied by others, corrupted many more documents over the centuries.

To add to the confusion, many of the ancient copyists were uncomfortable with having three different Gospels pointing to two or three different "regions," and tried to harmonize on a single name rather than several. Thus we have ancient manuscripts which show all three locations variously contained in all three synoptic Gospels.

The science of "Lower Criticism" is the name of the methods used by scholars today to sort through such variants in ancient manuscripts, using a set of simple tools. One tool, that may seem to be contra-indicated, is to favor the "most difficult reading." This stems from the habits of copyists, who are more likely to smooth out a "difficult" reading than they are to take an "easy" reading and make it more difficult. Another, applicable to this case, is the tendency of copyists (intentionally or unintentionally) to "harmonize" readings found in more than one Gospel.

DITCH GERGESA

However well-intentioned the third-century Origen may have been, he did much damage to the handing down of the Gospels. Not only did he add to the confusion of multiple location-names for a single event, he obscured the original lessons included by the writers of the Gospels.

Pigs Don't Fly

WHERE DID JESUS LAND?

We don't know the answer, but as I mentioned above, there are some clues that favor a particular location, namely the Roman polis of HIPPOS (Latin for "horses"). The Aramaic name is Sussita.  Let's look at Mark's story, beginning at Mark 5:1.

1. The man with the unclean spirit "had his dwelling among the tombs." While it is possible that this is an ancient and unused graveyard, it is more likely that it serves as the active graveyard for a nearby town--or at least it did so before this violent man took it up as his dwelling.

2. The people of the area know this demonized man well. He had "often been bound with shackles and chains." Again, why would the people be going far into the wilderness to seek out a dangerous individual? It is more likely that these tombs were near to the dwellings of the people involved--a village or city--perhaps even a polis.

3. "Constantly night and day he was screaming among the tombs and in the mountains, and gashing himself with stones." Someone is hearing these screams. There is mountainous territory nearby.

4. The herdsmen of the swine "ran away and reported it in the polis and in the country." Ah. It is a polis  that is nearby to the location. Although the use of this Greek word does not require that the town is an official Roman polis, the likelihood is there.

5. The people came to see what happened. The nearness of a town is suspected here.

6. Jesus said to the man, "Go home to your people and report to them what great things the Lord has done for you." This man had a home. He had relatives. He may have been a resident of Hippos.

Hippos/Sussita was situated on a small mountain-top near the Sea of Galilee, in the southern part of the eastern shore. The only other polis by the Sea of Galilee was Philoteria neat the southern tip of the lake near its outlet into the Jordan, but there are doubts as to whether it was still inhabited during the time of Jesus.

The shoreline below the mountain-top polis of Hippos is the most likely location for the landing-point of Jesus, when he encountered two demonized men rushing towards him. However, I do not recommend changing any of your Bibles to reflect this.

Hippos

One Demoniac? Or Two?

How Many Demoniacs Met Jesus?

Mark and Luke tell a story of a demonized man that ran out to meet Jesus after he crossed the Sea of Galilee (Mark 5:1-20, Luke 8:26-39). Matthew tells of the same incident, but in his story there are two demonized men that run out to meet Jesus (Matthew 8:28:34).

What happened? Did Matthew make a mistake? Or were Mark and Luke wrong in their versions?

Both Stories Are True!

Neither Mark nor Luke say that there was only one demonized man. This means the second man could well have been there, but for some reason these two Gospel writers chose not to mention him. As we look (below) at what is known about the most prominent of the two men, it becomes clear why Mark and Luke might have wanted to narrow their focus to only one man.

On the other hand, why would Matthew have wanted to expand his story to include the more obscure of the two men? There is evidence in how Matthew tells his stories that may give us a clue. First, Matthew has no mention of the "Legion" of demoniacs pleading with Jesus. Mark and Luke tell of this conversation after Jesus had attempted to cast the demons out. Jesus inquires as to the demons' name, and with the additional power of knowing their name, banishes them, as they requested, into a herd of pigs.

Matthew, on the other hand, is reluctant to imply that the power of Jesus is limited in any way. We see this, for instance, in the story of Jesus' second visit to his home town of Nazareth (Mark 6:5-6a, Matthew 13:54-58). According to Mark, "Jesus could not do any miracle there except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them; and he wondered at their unbelief." Matthew is unwilling to go so far, and writes instead, "Jesus did not do many miracles there because of their unbelief."

There is another factor in Matthew's choices that I have been unaware of before today: Matthew prefers to write about two's rather than one's!  In two more stories, Matthew has two blind men instead of one (Matthew 9:27-31 and 20:29-34). Compare this with Mark (10:46-52) and Luke (18:35-43). Also, at Jesus' triumphant march into Jerusalem, Matthew (21:1-11) mentions two donkeys while the other gospels mention only one. There are some Bible commentators who have enlarged on this predilection of Matthew's, but I will have to do some more study before I'm up to date on what Bible scholars think of this.

Biographies of Two Demoniacs

Surprise: There is actually enough information in the three Gospel stories to write a short biography for both of them. I will begin with the "lesser" demonized man mentioned only by Matthew.

Biography of the Lesser Demoniac

This man accompanied the "greater" demonized man by living in the tombs with him. So, at the time that they met Jesus, both men had companionship of a sort. But between the two of them, both men were so fierce that people were unable to pass through their domain. Matthew's story continues with Jesus' conversation with the demons, who are un-named by Matthew. It is possible with the text we have that the demons controlling this particular man were cast out immediately upon the first time that Jesus gave the  command. As in most encounters between Jesus and demons, they identify Jesus as the Son of God and ask what Jesus is going to do with them. Perhaps this man was beset by only a single demon.

No other information is provided. He is just "fierce." We do not know where this man came from or how long he had been at the tombs. Whereas the other man was wearing no clothes, we have no information as to whether this man was clothed or not. We do know that only one man--the "greater" former demoniac--begged Jesus to take him along in the boat when Jesus was departing. We hear of no instructions to this person nor of any testimony that he may have taken to the Ten Towns of this Roman district. He simply disappears from the story.

Biography of the Greater Demoniac

In contrast with the first man, we have a wealth of information about this one. We know that he is a former resident of a nearby city (again, probably Hippos). We know that he has a home there, where Jesus sends him (Luke 8:39), and where he has relatives ("his people"). We know that the townspeople had repeatedly tried to restrain him, including  by the use of shackles and chains, but that he had been able to break the chains and escape again to the tombs. We know that he spent time screaming among these tombs, probably the historical graveyard for the nearby city. He had been living in the tombs for a long time, wearing no clothes.

When Jesus said to the demons in him, "Come out of him, you unclean spirit!" nothing happened. Jesus then asked for the demons' name, which was "Legion," meaning a thousand of them. Jesus then permitted "Legion" to go into the pigs.

When the townspeople came to investigate, they found him seated at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. This man wanted to go with Jesus--the person who had freed him from a legion of demons. But Jesus told him, "Go home to your people and report to them what great things the Lord has done for you, and how he had mercy on you." And that is what he did: he went proclaiming throughout the whole city what  Jesus had done for him. This is the most visible--if not the only--outreach Jesus sent into the ten towns of the Decapolis.

This is certainly the greater story: terror and redemption, and testimony of salvation from a horrible fate. Matthew's story has its place, of course, but Mark and Luke have captured a memorable tale to inspire their readers.

Calming the Sea -- Human or God?

Jesus Asleep in the Boat

Jesus has been teaching in parables all day (Mark 4:2-9, 21-34). The crowd at the side of the lake was so large that he had to preach from one of the boats at hand so that he would not be trampled (Mark 4:1). When evening came, Jesus looked around and saw a crowd still surrounding him, so he gave orders to set sail for the other side of the lake (Matthew 8:18, Mark 4:35, Luke 8:22). Several would-be disciples clamored to go along with him  (Matthew 8:19-22). Although they had made no preparations for travel, they departed just as they were (Mark 4:36).

Jesus got into the stern of one of the boats, and the other disciples jumped in also. Other boats followed him as they set sail. Jesus had been preaching and tending to the needs of others all day. He was tired, and fell sound asleep right there in the stern of the boat. That's a very human thing to do. If you or I were tired, we might take a nap. If we were exhausted, maybe even a storm would not wake us up. Jesus was human.

But wait! I thought Jesus was God! Does God get tired?

God Commands the Storm

And the disciples fear a great fear

As John Mark, the assistant to Peter in Rome, tells this story, he hearkens back to an earlier story found in the Holy Scriptures of the Jewish people: namely, the story of Jonah the Prophet on a boat fleeing from God. In the story of Jonah, the boat captain says to Jonah, "How can you sleep?" In Mark's story, the disciples say, "Don't  you care that we're dying?"

But later, Mark quotes the Jonah story more directly. The crew on Jonah's ship "feared a great fear" when they saw the ferocity of the storm. When they tossed Jonah overboard (at his request) the sea became calm and the men "feared a great fear of the LORD [Yahweh]" (Jonah 1:16).

In Mark's storm story, when the sea became calm the disciples "feared a great fear" of the One who could command the wind and the sea. They said, "Who then is this?" In Mark's reworking of Jonah's story, Mark replaces God with Jesus as the One who is to be feared.

Side note: the Cognate Accusative.

Use of a noun as the "accusative" in a sentence where the noun is a cognate of the verb (if you followed all that) is called the "cognate accusative." Thus the sentence, "I dreamt a scary dream" uses the cognate accusative. We see this in English sometimes. It is very common in Hebrew and in the Old Testament.

But it is very rare in Greek, the language John Mark was using. In fact, in all of Greek literature--and that's a lot of literature--the phrase "feared a great fear" appears only twice. The first appearance is in the story of Jonah in the Septuagint--the Greek translation of the Old Testament that was written 200 years before Christ. The second appearance is in Mark's story of the storm, written 20 years after Christ (Mark 4:41). As Mark was writing his story, he had the story of Jonah before him.

God's Peace Abides

In Jonah, "the raging sea became calm" (Jonah 1:15). In Mark's story, "the wind died down and there was a great calm" (Mark 4:26). Mark accentuates and contrasts the intensity of the storm with the perfect stillness of the ensuing calm.

Only a god could do this. The gods Thor (Norse), Peyrun (Slavic), Baal (in Egypt), and Donar (German) come to mind. Yahweh, the only true God, is said to speak with thunder, hailstones, and coals of fire (Psalm 18:13).

Jesus is God.

But wait! I thought Jesus was human! Now you're confusing me!

The theologians have a solution for this--of sorts. Christian belief is that Jesus is both fully human and fully God. How that could be is, of course, beyond us.

Bonus:

C. S. Lewis on the Claims of Jesus Christ: "I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. ... Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God."

---Thanks to Howard Eames.

Second Bonus: The Storm at Sea by Rembrandt

Was Jesus Out of his Mind?

Did Jesus' Family Think He Was Crazy?

In the Gospel stories, Jesus is sometimes accused of "having a demon," or of being just plain crazy--which may mean the same thing in first century idioms. In response to these accusations, The Gospel of Mark reports that some people close to Jesus showed up to take him in to custody as a lunatic (Mark 3:20-21). Did his own people agree that he was nuts? The original Greek is challenging, and requires careful translation. Not all Bible translators have been up to the challenge.

Mark 3:20 says that when Jesus came home, the crowds gathered to such an extent that they could not even eat a meal. Is this crazy? Is Jesus neglecting his diet? The rest of the citation clarifies for us.

Here is a hard-literal translation of the first half of verse 21:
"kai akousantes (new-paragraph having-heard) hoi par autou (those of his-own) exalthon auton : (they-went-out to-take-charge-of him colon)." The Greek word kai (and) is frequently used as a new-paragraph marker. The Greek symbol for a colon is the same as for a semi-colon.

So far we have, "Having heard, those of his own went out to take charge of him; "
The center three words hoi par auto is a Greek idiom that can mean several things, as reflected in the several Bible versions. We find "his friends" in the KJV and ASV, "his family" (RSV, NEB, CEB, ESV, NIV, NLT), "his relatives" (JB), "his relations" (NJB), or "his own people" (NKJV, NRSV, NASB). Looking at the paragraph standing alone, the best translation is the last of these choices, "his own [people]." This avoids reading what is unknown into the text. (Abbreviations for Bible versions is at the end of this article.)

BUT There is more that is known about who hoi par auto refers to. Translation must always be placed in context In this major story section (Mark 3:20 thru 3:35), we find Jesus' mother and brothers arriving at the crowd scene, and calling for him. Thus we are justified contextually in saying that it was his family that came to take charge of Jesus.

But, does Jesus' Family think he's Crazy?

First, let's look at the hard literal translation of the rest of verse 21's original Greek, beginning after the colon:
"elegon gar hoti exesta (they-were-saying for quote He-is-out-of-his-mind period". hoti is placed here as a marker for the beginning of a direct quotation.

Thus we have, "They were saying, 'He is out of his mind.' " But who is "They"? The pronoun in English is ambiguous, for the rest of this major section has the scribes who came down from Jerusalem saying, "He has Beelzebul [a devil] in him." Does the pronoun "they" point to Jesus' family or to the scribes? Most translators have left it ambiguous, with two English "they's" in a row which might point to the same or different persons.

And don't go to the English rules for the antecedents to pronouns. First, there is no actual second pronoun in the Greek; the word "they" is indicated in the conjugation for the verb elegon. Second, in Greek there is great freedom where different words may be placed in a sentence. Sometimes the antecedent can be found several sentences later.

The translators of the Jerusalem Bible thought they knew what to do. They translated verse 21 as, "When his relatives heard of this, they set out to take charge of him, convinced he was out of his mind." In other words, the first "they" is understood as relatives, and the second "they" is the same group. MSG and TLB have similar translations.

But, remember that colon above? If the JB's rendering is really the case, why did the scribe who wrote our Greek text place a colon after "take-charge-of-him" and before "they-were-saying"? Doesn't that indicate a new thought with a new "they" in mind? I believe so.

Several groups of Bible translators agree with me. These translators have "And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for people were saying, 'He is beside himself'," or similar language (RSV, NEB, GNT).

Why is Jesus' Family Involved?

If his family has not decided that Jesus is a lunatic, what are they doing there in this story?

The answer lies in the tribal honor-and-shame societal values, and the  nefarious plots of the Scribes and Pharisees who have been sent to harass Jesus. They wish to prevent him from challenging the authority of the Sanhedrin--the supreme council of the Jews.

At this point in the story, Jesus' adoptive father Joseph has clearly passed away. Jesus' oldest step-brother James--born to James' first wife before Mary--is titular head of the family, and responsible for dealing with challenges to the family honor. If the family of Joseph has a lunatic son running around spouting nonsense, James is responsible to constrain this person for the protection of society.

But James does not know that Jesus is a lunatic. All he has are some unproven allegations coming from the priests and scribes who are part of the temple cult. His job, then, is to conduct an investigation. So that there may be no disagreement within his family, he brings his brothers with him to help investigate. And since Jesus' parentage is a bit strange (Holy Spirit descending, etc.) he also brings along Jesus' mother, whom Jesus is bound to honor according to Jewish law (remember the fifth commandment?).

Jesus, ever on his toes, turns their appearance into a topic for a sermon. He doesn't sound like a lunatic at all at this point, and we hear nothing of any further effort by his family to take him into custody. Case closed.

Or is it?

Jesus was Crazy!

At least, by the standards of some people. As a master of hyperbole, he was fond of saying outrageous things. "Does your eye offend you? Gouge it out!" (Mark 9:47). "Are you rich? You'll have a tougher time getting into the Kingdom of God than a camel trying to squeeze through the eye of a needle!" (Mark 10:25). "Do you want to hang out with me? Then you're going to have to drink my blood!" (John 6:53).

Some people were delighted. Others were offended. The scribes and Pharisees took these things as challenges to the way the people were being taught. Jesus was a danger, in their eyes. But in Jesus' view, the people were being put to sleep, and they needed strong language to wake them up.

Are you awake? Do you hang with Jesus? Do you honor the outrageous things he said?
Then, maybe, you're crazy too.

Bible Version Abbreviations

ASV     American Standard Version
CEB    Common English Bible
ESV     English Standard Version
JB        Jerusalem Bible
KJV     King James Version
MSG    The Message
NASB  New American Standard Bible
NEB     New English Bible
NIV      New International Version
NJB     New Jerusalem Bible
NKJV  New King James Version
NLT     New Living Translation
NRSV  New Revised Standard Version
RSV     Revised Standard Version
TLB     The Living Bible