Actually the setting given for the story is not so easily explained. It is amazing how wildly Bible commentators have twisted the facts and imagined all sorts of explanations for the problem. Some have simply assert as fact something like, 'there existed "such and such" a country that controlled "this and that" and the capital was "this" so the whole area could be called "this" therefore descriptions given in the Gospels are all correct!' It all a bunch of baloney. Most encyclopedias simply quote a Christian reference work without checking the facts. I clipped this next block of text from the Bible Errancy site:
Different ancient manuscripts refer to this happening in the country of the Gerasenes, the Gadarenes or even the Gergesenes. This is no doubt the response of early copyists to a geographical problem. They were aware that it could not be "Gerasenes" if they knew that Gerasa, which is now called Jerash, is over thirty miles to the south-east of the Sea of Galilee, with no steep slope down to any water. Gadara is nearer, only about five miles from the Sea. The scribes who changed "Gerasenes" to "Gadarenes" were presumably not aware of a small lakeside village called Khersa on the eastern shore, sounding like "Gerasa" through oral transmission.
Miracle stories evidently have many layers of significance, literary, psychological, and theological. They are far more fascinating if they are not naively accepted as history.
here piggy piggy
by peacefulpete 11 Replies latest watchtower bible
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peacefulpete
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JCanon
The scribes who changed "Gerasenes" to "Gadarenes" were presumably not aware of a small lakeside village called Khersa on the eastern shore, sounding like "Gerasa" through oral transmission.
Miracle stories evidently have many layers of significance, literary, psychological, and theological. They are far more fascinating if they are not naively accepted as history.I find the above position rather subjectively irrelevant since one must presume that the geographic location intended, that which fits the geographic description, wasn't called that by the Bible writers. So as long as there is an actual geographic location that fits the reference (i.e. this story didn't take place in the middle of the Gobi desert, right? where there is no sea?), then one must allow for the possibility that a particular location that might be called something different NOW might have been known as something else back then. Why is it we presume the name of the location didn't undergo changes over time rather than the gospel writers being confused about it? Fact is, no one substantially rule out what any location was referred to in the ancient past, or that the same location was known by the name used in the gospels. How many towns have a "Main Street" and a "Broadway"? Yet I'm sure some "intellectual" downt he road of time might presume I was fantasizing if I were locating any incident on "Broadway" anywhere but New York, based upon their own lack of expertise in the topic. There are lots of examples of experts, professionals in their fields, like archaeologists, who will observe the same geographical site and based upon what they don't know or do know write a book about it, which is later used as a "reference" by others and it's completely out of date or wrong.
Sooo....knocking ancient manuscripts only goes so far; some things you just can't know for certain about.
JCanon