Gergesa
Encyclopedia
Sea of Galilee
The Sea of Galilee, also Kinneret, Lake of Gennesaret, or Lake Tiberias , is the largest freshwater lake in Israel, and it is approximately in circumference, about long, and wide. The lake has a total area of , and a maximum depth of approximately 43 m...
that is described in the New Testament
New Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
Gospel
Gospel
A gospel is an account, often written, that describes the life of Jesus of Nazareth. In a more general sense the term "gospel" may refer to the good news message of the New Testament. It is primarily used in reference to the four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John...
s of Mark
Gospel of Mark
The Gospel According to Mark , commonly shortened to the Gospel of Mark or simply Mark, is the second book of the New Testament. This canonical account of the life of Jesus of Nazareth is one of the three synoptic gospels. It was thought to be an epitome, which accounts for its place as the second...
, Matthew
Gospel of Matthew
The Gospel According to Matthew is one of the four canonical gospels, one of the three synoptic gospels, and the first book of the New Testament. It tells of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth...
, and Luke
Gospel of Luke
The Gospel According to Luke , commonly shortened to the Gospel of Luke or simply Luke, is the third and longest of the four canonical Gospels. This synoptic gospel is an account of the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. It details his story from the events of his birth to his Ascension.The...
. According to these books, in Gergasa Jesus
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
drove Legion
Legion (demon)
Legion is a group of demons referred to in the Christian Bible. The New Testament outlines an encounter where Jesus healed a man from Gadarenes possessed by demons while traveling, known as Exorcising the Gerasenes demonic.- In the Bible :...
out of a wild man and into a herd of pigs.
Gergesenes means "those who come from pilgrimage or fight."
Many New Testament manuscripts refer to the "Country of the Gadarenes" or "Gerasenes" rather than the Gergesenes. Both Gerasa
Jerash
Jerash, the Gerasa of Antiquity, is the capital and largest city of Jerash Governorate , which is situated in the north of Jordan, north of the capital Amman towards Syria...
and Gadara
Umm Qais
Umm Qais is a town in Jordan located on the site of the ruined Hellenistic-Roman city of Gadara . The town was also called Antiochia or Antiochia Semiramis and Seleucia...
were cities to the east of the Sea of Galilee. They were both Gentile
Gentile
The term Gentile refers to non-Israelite peoples or nations in English translations of the Bible....
cities filled with citizens who were culturally more Greek than Semitic; this would account for the pigs in the biblical account. Gerasa and Gadara are accounted for in historical accounts (by writers such as Pliny the Elder
Pliny the Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian...
and Josephus
Josephus
Titus Flavius Josephus , also called Joseph ben Matityahu , was a 1st-century Romano-Jewish historian and hagiographer of priestly and royal ancestry who recorded Jewish history, with special emphasis on the 1st century AD and the First Jewish–Roman War, which resulted in the Destruction of...
) and by archaeological research. Today they are the modern towns of Jerash
Jerash
Jerash, the Gerasa of Antiquity, is the capital and largest city of Jerash Governorate , which is situated in the north of Jordan, north of the capital Amman towards Syria...
and Umm Qais
Umm Qais
Umm Qais is a town in Jordan located on the site of the ruined Hellenistic-Roman city of Gadara . The town was also called Antiochia or Antiochia Semiramis and Seleucia...
.
A third city, Hippos
Hippos
Hippos is an archaeological site in Israel, located on a hill overlooking the Sea of Galilee. Between the 3rd century BC and the 7th century AD, Hippos was the site of a Greco-Roman city. Besides the fortified city itself, Hippos controlled two port facilities on the lake and an area of the...
, was similar in character to Gadara and Gerasa, and it may fit the biblical account even better. It was located on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, whereas Gerasa and Gadara were several kilometers east and south of it, respectively. Hippos, Gerasa, and Gadara were all counted in the Decapolis
Decapolis
The Decapolis was a group of ten cities on the eastern frontier of the Roman Empire in Judea and Syria. The ten cities were not an official league or political unit, but they were grouped together because of their language, culture, location, and political status...
, an informal grouping of Greco-Roman cities in eastern Palestine.
Scholars debate the correct site of the miracle and modern translations have multiple readings of the Gospels. However, the earliest texts are very clear as to the original version of the synoptic Gospels
Synoptic Gospels
The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are known as the Synoptic Gospels because they include many of the same stories, often in the same sequence, and sometimes exactly the same wording. This degree of parallelism in content, narrative arrangement, language, and sentence structures can only be...
. Upon close observation of the earliest and best Greek manuscripts, the Alexandrian texts, the original reading of Matthew is “in the region of the Gadarenes,” and the original text of Mark and Luke is “in the country of the Gerasenes” This explanation however, does not account for the name Gergesa, which never appears in the earliest Greek manuscripts, and must have been a later addition, not in the original autographs. It is therefore necessary to find if there was a change made to the text, introducing Gergesa as the appropriate site of the miracle. The original textual alteration was made during the early third century by the Christian teacher Origen
Origen
Origen , or Origen Adamantius, 184/5–253/4, was an early Christian Alexandrian scholar and theologian, and one of the most distinguished writers of the early Church. As early as the fourth century, his orthodoxy was suspect, in part because he believed in the pre-existence of souls...
. In his Commentary on John, Books 1-10, Origen changes the original text of Matthew from “in the region of the Gadarenes” to “in the region of the Gergasenes,” using one main reason to substantiate his bold alteration. Because of the lasting impact Origen had upon the text and where the miracle was believed to be located, it is necessary to consider his motive for the change.
Early Christian monk
Monk
A monk is a person who practices religious asceticism, living either alone or with any number of monks, while always maintaining some degree of physical separation from those not sharing the same purpose...
s venerated a village called Kursi
Kursi
Kursi may refer to:*Arabic word for throne, as in the Tunisian title Bey al-Kursi*Hindi and Urdu word for chair, may also be used for an official title, such as that of a president or chairman*Alternative name for the Curonians...
, a few kilometers north of Hippos on the lakeshore, as the location of the miracle. They built a walled monastic complex there and made it a destination for Byzantine
Eastern Orthodox Church
The Orthodox Church, officially called the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly referred to as the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the second largest Christian denomination in the world, with an estimated 300 million adherents mainly in the countries of Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece,...
Christian pilgrims
Pilgrimage
A pilgrimage is a journey or search of great moral or spiritual significance. Typically, it is a journey to a shrine or other location of importance to a person's beliefs and faith...
. That monastery was destroyed by Sassanid Persian armies in the early 600s AD. Christian artifacts from Kursi can be viewed at the Golan Archaeological Museum
Golan Archaeological Museum
The Golan Archaeological Museum is a museum of the archaeological finds of the Golan Heights, located in Katzrin.The museum features artifacts from all historical periods...
.
Some are of the opinion that Gergasa was the country of the ancient Girgashites; but it is more probable that 'Gergesenes' was introduced by Origen upon mere conjecture; as before him most copies seem to have read 'Gadarenes', agreeable to the Parallel Passages and the ancient Syriac version
Peshitta
The Peshitta is the standard version of the Bible for churches in the Syriac tradition.The Old Testament of the Peshitta was translated into Syriac from the Hebrew, probably in the 2nd century AD...
.
In any event, the "Country of the Gergesenes" in the New Testament Gospels refers to some location on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee. It probably draws its name from one of the two major cities in the region, Gerasa and Gadara. Its exact location cannot be known for certain With the Current Information.