Episode 81: Mark Part 23–Cosmic Encounters 2–The Legion in the Graveyard

This amazing account is one of the most famous in all of the Bible–when Yeshua/Jesus and His disciples travel to Gentile territory only to be confronted by a legion of unclean spirits who embark upon an interesting attempt to negotiate their fate. What does the fate of the pigs tell us not only about the difference between humans and animals in God’s eyes but also their difference in general? And what did it tell the gathered pagans about the identity of the man responsible for the death of their gods’ sacrifices?

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Mark 23—Cosmic Encounters Part 2—The Legion in the Graveyard

Last week, we covered the incident where Yeshua/Jesus calmed the storm and terrified his disciples. With all of the miracles and deliverances He has performed, they still see Him as nothing more than one of the great prophets. Because of their paradigms and their lack of what we all have, a narrator, they simply cannot see through the clues He is laying down. Of course, no one will be able to see the bigger picture until after the Resurrection and this is on purpose. As Paul states in I Cor 2:

⁷ But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. ⁸ None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory

Yeshua’s identity, known only to the demons He confronted, had to remain secret or they might never have crucified Him. A knowledge of his identity, coupled with the works He was doing, would have led to a violent armed uprising which would have stood in stark opposition to the message of the Kingdom that God was moving in human affairs to save His people as well as the nations, and not to kill them. But had people known, there would have been nothing stopping them. In the beatitudes, we see the recurring theme of non-violence—the Kingdom of God conquers through faithful witnesses and not by the sword. After Constantine introduced Christianity to how “useful” violence could be in spreading religion, we lost sight of Yeshua’s message and now we have become so adapted to and dependent on violence that we feel naked without it. And today’s message is about that—violence versus peace, Yeshua vs demons and not Yeshua vs the demon-possessed. At every turn, Mark introduces us to Yeshua’s true enemies and shows us a new way of fighting the powers that be. Remember that the most common miracle recorded by Mark is exorcisms. Mark is showing that the true enemies of humanity are not flesh and blood. We lose sight of that all too often.

Hi, I am Tyler Dawn Rosenquist and welcome to Character in Context, where I teach the historical and ancient sociological context of Scripture with an eye to developing the character of the Messiah. If you prefer written material, I have five years’ worth of blog at theancientbridge.com as well as my six books available on amazon—including a four-volume curriculum series dedicated to teaching Scriptural context in a way that even kids can understand it, called Context for Kids—and I have two video channels on YouTube with free Bible teachings for both adults and kids. You can find the link for those on my website. Past broadcasts of this program can be found at characterincontext.podbean.com and transcripts can be had for most broadcasts at theancientbridge.com

All Scripture this week comes courtesy of the ESV, the English Standard Version but you can follow along with whatever Bible you want. A list of my resources can be found attached to the transcript for Part two of this series at theancientbridge.com.

5 They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes. 

Last week, we left Yeshua and His disciples in the boat at sea where He had just calmed the storm with a word. He didn’t call upon a higher authority, He just demanded the sea “be muzzled” and all was calm. Now, a Greek might have immediately credited Him with being a god, but not the Jews. God is spirit, everyone knows it. Sure, there are some strange and difficult things to explain in the Hebrew Scriptures where different folks met with a man whom they would later claim was Yahweh but this is different. They knew this guy.

At it’s widest, the Sea of Galilee was about seven miles across, and El Koursi, which many scholars believe is the location for this event, is at the far eastern side of the widest point. A mile south from this little town there are steep cliffs and two miles away there are ancient cave tombs. They started in the northwest in Capernaum and it would have been a pretty good trip depending on how much luck they had with the winds going in the right direction. One way or the other, from start to finish it was at least two hours. They left at night and so it is likely still nighttime when they arrive and it would make the most sense. There is no city named, just the “country of the Gerasenes” which does mean that this is no longer Jewish territory. Since His childhood escape to Egypt, this is probably Yeshua’s first trip out of Galilee except to visit the Temple for the yearly festivals.

Again, like the last story, this is remarkably more detailed than the accounts usually penned by Mark so it is likely that He is recording another eyewitness testimony and not passing along something he has orally from other believers. Remember that Mark was almost certainly the earliest Gospel, written within a few decades of Yeshua’s death. The others were considerably later. In fact, the other Gospels depend very much on Mark’s material but they all come at it from different angles. With Mark, of course, the focus is on Yeshua fulfilling the role of Yahweh as the warrior come to save/shepherd His own people.

² And when Jesus had stepped out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit. 

What a difference between this and the first synagogue encounter in Mark 1, eh? The demon in that unfortunate fellow in the synagogue waited until Yeshua laid down His message/challenge before confronting Him. The gig was up and the demon knew it and he was immediately trying naming magic on Him by trying to use the power of His Name against Him. Unfortunately, that doesn’t work with Yeshua. It evidently only works against demons. But he gave it the old college try. Gotta admire his optimism. But here we have a Gentile man, a heathen, not in a synagogue but in a graveyard—talk about unclean piled on top of unclean! This story is so detailed, it is heartbreaking, whereas we know nothing about the man in the synagogue who had a demon. Again, this comes across as having come from an eyewitness—and who knows? Perhaps the man himself! Notice that, unlike the incident in the synagogue, Yeshua doesn’t start teaching or preaching—the man comes running to Him.

³ He lived among the tombs. And no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain, 

Such detailed history we are getting here—whereas we know nothing about the leper or the paralytic. In the verses to come, we will find out more about how the demon/demons affect him. This is something we never received in any of the other cases either of healing or deliverance. In this case, we are going to see how anti-social this makes the man, cutting him off from community—this is a form of living death in the ancient world where people simply did not exist on their own. You were son of, brother of, daughter of, wife of, etc. of such and such people and clan. You were defined by your associations. We have no clue about any of this for this poor man because the demons have deprived him of it all. He is all but dead—not physically but as a human being.

⁴ for he had often been bound with shackles and chains, but he wrenched the chains apart, and he broke the shackles in pieces. No one had the strength to subdue him. 

In the Gentile world, they were very careful with how they responded to possessed individuals. The person was believed to be “touched by the gods” and therefore they weren’t simply shooting him with a bow and arrow to take him out. They didn’t dare. The gods had their hand on him, either to punish him or he had the essence of a god inside him and was therefore untouchable. They did their best to keep him away from their settlement because he was dangerous but they wouldn’t dream of reaching out to kill him. Lucky for him!

⁵ Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones. 

Geez, we are quick to ignore the human element here, eh? This is beyond the pale horrible. Following the Jewish reckoning of time, he is tormented not day and night but night and day as the day begins biblically at sundown. The fact that he lived in the graveyard is not surprising as it is considered an unclean place and people generally avoid going there. If these people were ancestor worshipers, and I have no idea if they were, then he would be able to eat of the offerings left to sustain deceased relatives in sheol, aka the grave or the underworld. Otherwise, he might have survived on food left for the gods by the people who felt he was touched by them. He was crying out in madness, and physically harming himself and not just others. The word for stone here is not petra or kefa but lithos. We get the word lithography from this word.

Rabbinic sources tell us that the classic signs of demonic possession and madness are (1) running around at night (which was believed to be unsafe due to evil spirits being on the prowl), (2) staying overnight in the areas where dead are buried, (3) tearing clothes when not grieving, and (4) being destructive of property. This guy obviously meets all the requirements.

⁶ And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before him. 

Obviously, He isn’t recognizing Yeshua by His appearance. Something spiritual is going on here. The spirit in the man recognized who was approaching and ran and fell down at His feet. Just as all honor and shame community members know their status and their place (the definition of a fool was someone who didn’t know or act in accordance with his status/intelligence/skill/authority whereas the wise man did. Therefore you could be poor and wise or rich and a fool.). This spirit recognizes someone higher up the Cosmic hierarchy, a lot higher up. But even though he prostrates the man before Yeshua, He isn’t done wheeling and dealing and trying to somehow get the upper hand.

⁷ And crying out with a loud voice, he said, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.” 

And he’s stubborn. In the next verse, we will see that he says this in response to a command to vacate the premises. He names Him and then He speaks an incantation much like the ones the rabbis or modern exorcists would speak, “I adjure you by God, do not torment me.” Little stinker is trying to finagle some naming magic against Yeshua. Pretty bold. Or maybe just pretty darned desperate and willing to try anything. I mean, how could things possibly get any worse for this demon? And He calls Yeshua something we have not heard yet, “Son of the Most High God.” This is not a Messianic title, like Messiah or Son of Man, but a divine one. And the real kicker can’t be ignored here that Yeshua has just been denounced by His own family in Capernaum at the end of chapter three. The demon recognizes exactly who Yeshua is but His own family, including His mother Miriam, and James (Jacob) and Jude who were all heavy hitters in the early church, don’t recognize Him. The irony here is just unreal.

Speaking of irony. Here we have this long list of offenses against the demon who is talking to Him, the torture it has been putting this poor man through for who knows how long, and He is begging not to be tormented. I tell ya, some folks can dish it out but they can’t take it!

⁸ For he was saying to him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!” 

Pretty cheeky to ask for mercy, I would have to say.

⁹ And Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” He replied, “My name is Legion, for we are many.” 

Now this is interesting and you may ask, “Well, Tyler, if Yeshua is really the Son of God then why is He asking the demon’s name?” Well, that’s a good question and I am so glad you asked. Personally, I think it was to prove a point to His disciples and to us. The demon named Yeshua and adjured Him by God’s Name (I assume) although the text only says theos. That’s how things were done. But Yeshua gets the name of the demon/group of demons and then doesn’t use it. The name given is Legion, which is a Latin loan word but found in Roman, Greek and Aramaic texts. Whether this is his real name or an evasive answer, we can’t know for sure but I have my own reasons for believing it is the real deal that aren’t important right now and nothing I can prove to you anyway so not worth spending time on. Let’s assume for the sake of argument that it’s the demon’s or the group’s real name.

But here’s what is cool, in mythologies, the gods would do literally anything to keep anyone from learning their true name. Read the myth of Isis and Re/Ra some time for a typical pagan look at the beliefs about naming magic. But all Yeshua has to do is ask the question and the demon spits out this answer. He probably wasn’t happy about it but he had no choice. He has to comply. Now that Yeshua has the name, the demon is left bereft of hope. Poor, poor, demon. Let’s all take a moment to pity it. But wait! There’s hope yet! The demon scores upon a clever idea.

¹⁰ And he begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. 

In the ancient world, there was this concept of regional gods and we see this popping up occasionally in the Bible. It is the reason that the Israelites were never monotheistic until after the exile. They were instead henotheistic. We know that they worshipped Asherah, the mother goddess of the Canaanites, as the consort of Yahweh—we know this from both the Bible and from pottery shards picturing them together with the caption, “YHWH and his Asherah.” Although Asherah looks like a giraffe playing a harp to me. I will have a link to that in the transcript going up on Friday. http://www.bibleorigins.net/files/yahweh_asherah.jpg

Henotheism is when you believe in many gods but you have one at the very top of the food chain and the others are subservient. Polytheism is where you believe in many gods who do not demand exclusive worship. Monolatry is what they have in Mormonism where they believe in a great many gods but are only allowed to worship their own god. They believe the gods were once people just like them but they are only allowed to worship the one they were born of. But like I said, Israel was henotheiostic until after the exile. They worshipped Yahweh at the top of their pyramid of deities but they had a lot of other gods whom they felt served under Him, like Asherah the fertility/mother goddess, Baal Hadad the god of storms, Dagon of the grain harvest (the fish stuff is medieval midrash and not supported by the copious archaeology), Ishtar/Astarte the war goddesses, etc. The reason they did this was because of the deeply entrenched beliefs that gods were regional and you couldn’t get anything done without their help. Ra was the sun god in Egypt but not in Babylon, that was Shamash. They couldn’t get things done outside of their region. It just didn’t occur to people that it was the same exact sun in the sky, I suppose. So anyway, these demons didn’t want to be sent out of their region. Perhaps there is something to the idea of regional authority. Maybe if they left that region they wouldn’t be as powerful in possessing humans, or maybe they just believed that to be the case because that’s what the humans believed. I don’t know but we do know that they were desperate to stay put. So, again, these tormenters are begging for mercy. Dang. But Yeshua cannot just leave them with the ability to come back into this man or to go into anyone else.

¹¹ Now a great herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, 

If you needed any more proof that this was a Gentile community then look no further. Pigs are unclean and do not fall under the category of food in the Bible. Jews would not be raising them. Although they are clean while alive and useful, they are unclean once dead and unclean for eating. They were extensively used for pagan sacrifices, as we see in Maccabees when Antiochus Epiphanes had a pig sacrificed on the altar in Jerusalem, shaming Yahweh and dedicating His Temple to His own false god. Many, many Jews died rather than prove their loyalty to the Seleucid Greeks by eating pig sacrificed to idols. Among the gods who were said to love pig were Zeus, Athena, Dionysus, Nemesis, and Mars. Pig was synonymous with paganism in the ancient world.

¹² and they begged him, saying, “Send us to the pigs; let us enter them.” 

I have to tell you that this would have read like the punch line to a joke among the early Christian, Jewish listeners. Demons residing in pigs that will be sacrificed to demons, how utterly appropriate.

¹³ So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the sea.

Here’s where the story gets tragic again. Two thousand pigs, when subjected to the torment that just one man was enduring, kill themselves. Sidebar here: when we look at the difference between humans and animals, being made in God’s image versus being made to be managed and ruled over by God’s image-bearers, this is a striking picture that flies in the face of a lot of animal rights rhetoric. While there is no need to be cruel to animals, they are not equal to or better than people. This man’s struggle against enough demons to drive two thousand pigs mad is very inspirational. Yeshua freed the man by condemning the pigs. Not because He hated the pigs but because He loved the man. One man is greater than two thousand animals. Sometimes we lose sight of that.

In the Testament of Solomon 5:11, written by a Greek-speaking Jew, Asmodeus begs King Solomon not to condemn him to water as it was believed that land demons would be destroyed if exposed to water. Or at the very least, it would be hellaciously uncomfortable and they would be trapped there. So, this story goes along with established Jewish beliefs at the time. In the eyes of the audience, these demons would never harm anyone again. But what else are we supposed to see here?

This is a very blatant allusion to Pharaoh’s armies being driven into the sea and destroyed. We just keep coming back to this Exodus language. Yeshua is now not only leading His Jewish brethren out of bondage to the evil one but Gentiles as well. As we see both the children of Israel and the mixed multitude being delivered from slavery to Pharaoh, it would hardly be a true picture of the Exodus if only Jews were being set free from bondage, right? Nor would it be in keeping with the repeated theme of the nations being set free in Isaiah.

¹⁴ The herdsmen fled and told it in the city and in the country. And people came to see what it was that had happened. 

The herdsmen had total responsibility for flock and often responsible for replacing animals that were killed due to their negligence. And they had to be thinking, “No one is ever going to believe us. They are gonna kill us.” In a situation like this, there is no better story than the truth, I suppose. They can’t hardly say it was a raiding party because the townspeople would have gone looking for them and plus, there were undoubtedly tracks leading off to the cliffs. This was like the worst day ever. They told everyone—in the city and in the surrounding country. They seriously needed everyone to know it wasn’t their fault or they were ruined. Plus, they were probably scared out of their wits. So, you know, in a time without movies or radio or television, people are going to drop everything to investigate. This was like the biggest thing that had ever happened.

¹⁵ And they came to Jesus and saw the demon-possessed man, the one who had had the legion, sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. 

They were expecting to find the pigs gone but they probably did not expect this. Everyone knew this guy. You couldn’t even bury your people without having to deal with his violent ravings. He was notorious—and now he was sane. He was dressed and sitting right there before God and everyone and the worst thing was that he wasn’t touched by the gods anymore. This stranger had defeated the god who used to be acting/speaking/whatever through him. That’s a terrifying thing because their gods weren’t nice people. They were petty, vindictive, flawed, sinful and vengeful just like people only they had powers. Imagine if your worst enemy in the world had powers. I know, right? The horror! Now, imagine someone came along and took your enemy’s powers away. But in your world, that doesn’t automatically make him your friend. He might just be worse. And he killed all the pigs. Not a good sign. HE KILLED THEIR PIGS. No more community sacrifices to their gods. This was beyond bad. This guy was starting a war and they would be the ones to pay the price when their gods took revenge.

They were right, of course, about starting a war. He had started a war with the powers of the demonic and He was taking no prisoners. But they didn’t know that He would win that war and that they weren’t going to be the cannon fodder. They saw a Jew making trouble. He saw people in need of deliverance. What did the Second Servant Song say?

Isaiah 49:6 “…he says: “It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”

This isn’t something that He only told His disciples to do and never modeled Himself. He went to another unclean person (remember the leper? And this will also be the theme of the next two weeks as well) and made them whole. Restored them to community. Didn’t just heal but restored. And this guy is the most amazing example yet because he wasn’t Jewish and living in the Land, He was a Gentile living among tombs. Dead bodies. Mega unclean. In fact, you could literally have not found a more unclean person on the face of the earth. Yeshua went to the person who needed Him the most and was farthest from Him in order to show God’s mercy and love.

¹⁶ And those who had seen it described to them what had happened to the demon-possessed man and to the pigs. 

So, we have eye-witnesses who stuck around. They gave a full accounting—starting with the deliverance of the demoniac and then about the pigs. Notice the order here because it is the right order. What happened to the pigs is nothing compared to what Yeshua did to and for this man. There are many things we don’t know about him. Was he married? A father? The only son of a widowed woman? Restoring this man was about more than restoring one person. This potentially restored a family and saved them from disaster. This was a real guy who was not born in that cemetery—he had a past and people connected to him. Or perhaps he was all alone in the world apart from the community who had had to restrain and push him outside of their towns.

You can just imagine the songs of thanksgiving and praise! He is restored to us! What wonderful works of God! Freedom has come to this man and to all of us. Let’s go get our sick and He can heal them. Let’s get crazy uncle Bob and get him delivered too. Let’s have a party! Oh wait, we can’t have a party–our pigs are all dead. That was actually a joke, as they probably went right to fear and irritation but hopefully, there were a few people rejoicing.

¹⁷ And they began to beg Jesus to depart from their region. 

This isn’t the surprising part to me, because their pigs were dead, after all, and that was no small financial loss. It was devastating. The part that is shocking to me is that they didn’t run to get their sick—but maybe they didn’t know He could do that too. We don’t know whether or not Yeshua healed the man’s cuts and scars because the text doesn’t say. There are obviously a number of reasons for their reaction and I have already touched on them so let’s review (1) their demoniac was “touched by the gods” and this guy treated their gods like a rag doll and is therefore dangerous—thus they did not order Him to go but begged Him, (2) He killed all their pigs within probably an hour of arriving, so just what would happen if He stuck around for a few days? (3) the gods who were expecting those pigs as sacrifices still needed to be appeased and fed, did they dare get caught offering hospitality to the man who made hospitality to the gods impossible? This may seem silly but this is how they thought. Sacrifices were their way of caring for the physical needs of their gods. Their gods had to eat or they could weaken and die and if a god weakens and dies then the thing he/she is supposed to do won’t get done. That means famine, no children, curses galore. Ancient gods weren’t all that competent. They weren’t expected to be able to gather up victuals and also make the rains come on schedule and row or pull the sun across the sky. They couldn’t win your war on an empty stomach, or make your wife have a son. They probably knew they couldn’t kill anyone who could toss demons out of a man, but they knew they had to get rid of Him before things got any worse.

¹⁸ As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed with demons begged him that he might be with him. 

This is really beautiful. The Greek word parakaleo is used for both the people begging Him to leave and the formerly possessed man begging to go with Him. This man is longing for companionship and community but does not choose to return to his people, whom he would have been defined by his whole life. You longed for your community in the ancient world. You were them and they were you. How they looked at you determined your self-worth and how you lived up to their expectations defined your acceptability in the community. Not like today, where people are individualistic and shrug off what other people think. What other people think about you within a dyadic, or community-based society defined what you thought about yourself. But he was willing to turn his back on them and follow the man who set him free instead. This doesn’t look like a big huge deal to us, but to the Jewish audience of Mark, they would have caught their breath in shock that a filthy, pagan gentile who had probably (in their minds) earned every single one of his demons, would choose to follow after the one true God by following Yeshua. It was scandalous. It was awe-inspiring. It was a paradigm buster for sure.

¹⁹ And he did not permit him but said to him, “Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.” 

No family is mentioned, but he does have friends. Likely they might have been feeding him all this time. They knew his condition intimately. Who he was before and what he became under demonic torment and now that he was free they could know him again. But Yeshua didn’t want them all thinking that the demons just abandoned him on their own or that there was magical incantations involved. Yeshua loved his friends enough to want them to have the witness of the true story. And that true story is about what? Yeshua says it is about God’s mercy. Not about God’s wrath on the demons while the man was just a pawn, but instead a witness that the mercy was the whole point of the deliverance. This wasn’t a battle of the gods, this was a battle for a man’s life. That is the story that needed telling.

Notice what Yeshua doesn’t say—unlike His cleansing of the leper, He doesn’t warn the man to be silent. On the contrary, He tells him to blab the story to all his friends. Believe me, it would have spread through the Decapolis relatively quickly. No tv, no radio, no internet, no movies, no books. Oh yeah, this was like the event of the millennium.

²⁰ And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him, and everyone marveled.

I want you to think about what Yeshua did here, in perspective. He and His disciples could have died on the way over. His disciples had rowed and rowed in order to travel miles by boat and much of it in a storm. They arrive and immediately have to turn back. All this effort to save one pagan from unimaginable torment. Really puts our pathetic efforts to serve our fellow man into context, eh?