Gadara #72

Gadara was a prominent Hellenistic city in the region southeast of the Sea of Galilee, part of the league known as the Decapolis. It matters to Bible readers because Matthew places Jesus’ encounter with two demon-possessed men “into the country of the Gergesenes” (Matthew 8:28). The other Gospels place the same story in the country of the “Gerasenes” (Mark 5:1; Luke 8:26), and the difference of names is one of the interesting puzzles of the passage.

Biblical Significance

After crossing the Sea of Galilee by boat, Jesus is met on the eastern shore by a man, or in Matthew two men, who lived among the tombs and were so violent that no one could pass by (Matthew 8:28; Mark 5:2-5). Jesus commands the unclean spirits to come out, and they ask to be sent into a large herd of pigs feeding nearby. He allows it, and the herd rushes down the steep bank into the sea and drowns (Matthew 8:31-32; Mark 5:11-13). The herdsmen flee to the nearby town, and the people come out and find the man “sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind,” and, afraid, they ask Jesus to leave their region (Mark 5:14-17).

The man who had been freed begs to go with Jesus, but Jesus tells him instead, “Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.” He went away and proclaimed in the Decapolis all that Jesus had done for him, and everyone marveled (Mark 5:19-20; Luke 8:38-39). The presence of a herd of pigs, which Jews considered unclean, fits a largely non-Jewish area, and the man’s mission to the Decapolis marks one of the first times the Gospels show the good news being spread among Gentiles.

Why do the Gospels give different names? Gadara lay about six miles southeast of the lake, and Gerasa (modern Jerash) lies much farther inland, some thirty miles away. Scholars have proposed several explanations, including that Gadara’s territory reached the lake, that the Gospel writers used different regional names, or that “Gerasenes” refers to a place named Kursi (sometimes rendered Gergesa) on the lake’s eastern shore. The manuscripts of all three Gospels themselves vary between the names, so the exact place remains debated.

Today

Ancient Gadara is identified with Umm Qais, a hilltop site in northwestern Jordan that looks out over the Sea of Galilee, the Golan Heights, and the Yarmouk valley. Excavations have revealed a colonnaded main street paved with black basalt, two theaters, a public bath complex, and many rock-cut tombs, a detail that suits the Gospel description of a man dwelling among tombs. Gadara was known in antiquity as a center of Greek culture and produced several well-known philosophers and poets, and it was also known for its hot springs. At Kursi, on the eastern shore of the lake, a Byzantine monastery and church stand near a steep slope that some visitors take as the setting of the story.