Mark 5

Jesus travels over to the other side of the Sea of Galilee and encounters the demoniac. When I traveled to Israel and worked on a Decapolis city archaeological dig this is the scripture I thought of.

This side is the Greek side. There are few Jews. Jesus thought he could get a rest over here, for himself and his disciples.

Gerasa is further north from where we were at Hippos. But both were Decapolis cities, proud of being modern, up to date, in the Greek/Roman style. Any Jewish people living there were quite hellenized.

I can imagine pigs living up at the top of a hill, Hippos is situated on a flat plateau at the top of a small mountain. As we face the sea there are steep slopes going down the sea. In some places it is more like a cliff. But the lake was higher everyone agrees. So if the water was right up against the hill then that would describe the account very well. The demons entered the pigs and the pigs ran down a steep cliff into the water.

But it happened further north. However the geography is pretty similar all along the eastern coast. The mountains rise quickly out of the sea. There is little coastline now and there must have been even less in Jesus' time.

So when I read this I think of the view from the top of Mt. Hippos/Sussita. (They both mean "horse" in different languages.