The explanation of the episodes and its rather troubling features, I would like to suggest, is actually very simple; and properly understood, shows Jesus in a positive light. Jesus is a Jew, the demoniac is not, nor are the swineherds, nor are their fellow Gerasenes. This racial or religious element is not mentioned in Mark. But why should it have been? That Jesus was a Jew would be well-known to all of Mark’s audience. Likewise well-known would be the fact that the Gerasenes were predominately Gentiles. And this is not to mention the prominence of pigs and swineherds in the episode. For Jews, it will be recalled, pigs were unclean.79 The acceptance of religious and racial tensions change the whole dynamics of the episode. Mark’s original audience would have no problem in understanding. On one important level, the episode is about ritual purity. Context in Mark, as I have argued elsewhere, is of supreme importance.80 In this instance the episode is sandwiched between a nature miracle, Jesus stilling a storm (Mark .ff.) which his disciples do not understand, and the double episode of Jairus’ daughter restored to life and the hemorrhaging woman cured (Mark .ff.). This latter double episode is particularly significant. Two events in the double episode about the healing of Jairus’ daughter and the hemorrhaging woman are intertwined. This is the only time this occurs in the Gospels,81 and that fact should be significant. III IV 79 Not only if they were eaten. Babba Kamma 7.7 has: “They do not rear pigs anywhere:”, i.e. in Israel. 80 Jesus and the Law(Athens, GA, 1996). 81 See also the corresponding passages in Matthew 9.18ff., and Luke 8.40ff.
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