Daniel J. Harrington: “The problem is that the story attributes destructiveness to Jesus.”92 But once one recognizes that in Mark Jesus wishes to have little truck with the Gentiles there is no problem. () People from the city and the country, when they had been told of this, came to see. When they saw Jesus with the former demoniac clothed and in his right mind they were afraid (Mark.). What scared them according to the text was the healing of the lunatic, not the destruction of the swine. Their reaction was natural. Few things are as frightening as a miracle of healing by a person of hostile faith. They begged him to get out of their boundaries, to leave their territory (Mark.). The Greek is more specific than a translation such as ‘neighborhood.’ They are not reported as being angry with Jesus, but as afraid. It is as if they were saying, “Work your miracles, but among your own people.” () The former demoniac wished to go with Jesus, but Jesus refused (Mark.ff.). What seems a harsh rebuff, becomes understandable once one recognizes that Mark’s Jesus sees his mission only to the Jews. He cannot have a Gentile among his disciples. () Nonetheless, he does tell the former demoniac to tell his friends in his home place what the Lord had done for him (Mark .). The former demoniac does so, in the Decapolis--again Gentility is being stressed (Mark .). The episode in the Decapolis appears in a very different guise once one stresses, as the verses themselves do, that Jesus was in Gentile territory. Jesus in Mark most certainly had no mission to the Gentiles. 92 In The New Jerome Biblical Commentary ed. Raymond E. Brown et al. (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1990) p.607. VIII
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