Gadarene Swine

The story shows up abbreviated in Matthew (and with 2 demoniacs instead of 1), so I’ll use Mark’s and Luke’s versions. It is different enough from all the other stories about unclean spirits that it needs a little review.

At the obvious boat landing spot there’s a noisy and dangerous man who can’t even be chained up. He lives naked among tombs and cuts himself.

The man’s problem is demon possession, and possession by quite a number of evil spirits. It isn’t fashionable to consider that real, though sometimes one is allowed to mention that you saw some very odd things on a trip to South America once. Nothing in the story structure makes any sense if demons aren’t real, though.

Jesus tells the evil spirits to leave the man, and they don’t. Instead they beg him not to torture them. Odd. The rest of the time they just do as told.

Then instead of commanding again, Jesus asks the name, and they answer Legion because there are so many—and continue begging Jesus not to make them leave the area/go to the Abyss. Why does Jesus care about the name(s) of the demons?

Then they beg to be allowed to go into the pigs grazing on the hillside. Would observant Jews raise pigs? They’d not eat them, and at least one authority cites the Talmud as saying "Cursed be the man who would breed swine." (I can’t tell how old this prohibition is, but it cites an incident from the invasion of Aristobulus). This happens in the Decapolis, which was probably mostly pagan, so the swineherds were probably pagan. So the demon-possessed man probably was too.

Jesus gives the demons permission to infest the swine, and the pigs promptly commit suicide. Was that what they had in mind, or was that just the working out of their effects in a simpler creature than a man? And where do they go from here, now that their hosts are dead? Wander about, or head for the Abyss they were so worried about?

The next detail we all recognize: when the townsfolk come to verify the swineherds’ story they find it true—and beg Jesus to leave. Never mind the healing and that the danger is gone: those pigs were more valuable and they don’t want to risk any further loss. Jesus doesn’t seem to care tremendously about pigs or a torn-up roof, people come first.

So Jesus leaves; he doesn't force his presence on people who don't want him around. The formerly demon-possessed man begs to come with him but Jesus tells him to go back home and tell people what the Lord had done for him. Of course if Jesus had had pagans among his disciples nobody would have listened to him, but this wasn’t the only time he told people to go home. He only called some, though not all of them followed.

If I were making up stories about Jesus, I’d be interested in showing his power. OK, making a legion of demons go away is pretty dramatic, but why would I specify that they didn’t obey at first? And why would I make the townspeople so unhappy about a dramatic healing? And since I’d be Jewish, I’d try to make sure that it was understood that the demon-possessed man was Jewish. (Jews could get a little bent out of shape when reminded that God worked with gentiles too: Luke 4:23-29.)

Instead we have a story of a Jesus who even seems to care about what happens to demons and doesn’t worry about private property; a story which raises a lot of never-answered questions as Jesus heals a gentile. Jesus doesn’t fit neatly into little boxes. (And I don't think WWJD is a very good rule of thumb.)