Mark 5

 1 And they came to the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gerasenes.
 2 And when he was come out of the boat, straightway there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit,
 3 who had his dwelling in the tombs: and no man could any more bind him, no, not with a chain;
 4 because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been rent asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces: and no man had strength to tame him.
 5 And always, night and day, in the tombs and in the mountains, he was crying out, and cutting himself with stones.
 6 And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and worshipped him;
 7 and crying out with a loud voice, he saith, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the Most High God? I adjure thee by God, torment me not.
 8 For he said unto him, Come forth, thou unclean spirit, out of the man.
 9 And he asked him, What is thy name? And he saith unto him, My name is Legion; for we are many.
 10 And he besought him much that he would not send them away out of the country.
 11 Now there was there on the mountain side a great herd of swine feeding.
 12 And they besought him, saying, Send us into the swine, that we may enter into them.
 13 And he gave them leave. And the unclean spirits came out, and entered into the swine: and the herd rushed down the steep into the sea, in number about two thousand; and they were drowned in the sea.  14 And they that fed them fled, and told it in the city, and in the country. And they came to see what it was that had come to pass.
 15 And they come to Jesus, and behold him that was possessed with demons sitting, clothed and in his right mind, even him that had the legion: and they were afraid.
 16 And they that saw it declared unto them how it befell him that was possessed with demons, and concerning the swine.
 17 And they began to beseech him to depart from their borders.
 18 And as he was entering into the boat, he that had been possessed with demons besought him that he might be with him.
 19 And he suffered him not, but saith unto him, Go to thy house unto thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and how he had mercy on thee.
 20 And he went his way, and began to publish in Decapolis how great things Jesus had done for him: and all men marveled.

There is on the eastern shore in the vicinity of Wadi Samakh to the south shore a region that belonged to the Decapolis.  Both Hippos and Gadara had access to ports on the lake.  One of the coins of Gadara showed a warship on it, the Romans often enjoyed mock naval contests on the lakes of Italy.  Gadara overlooked the lake, its ruins lie in the nation of Jordan.  Some Gospel manuscripts stated this was the land of the Gadarenes.  If the Decapolis was a regional authority, it was indeed open to the Gadarenes as well.  The Decapolis contained much evidence of Graeco-Roman culture. 

Most pilgrims looked for the site of this event on the eastern shore between En Gev and Kursi (the side of Wadi Semakh).  At Kursi are the ruins of a Byzantine monastery.

The homeless man was living in tombs or burial caves and was exceedingly fierce and hostile.  He scared people and had been in trouble with the law, fettered and chained, he had broken loose.  He did not describe a condition such as having numerous voices in his head, he described himself as being many, an entire legion.  A Roman legion was about 6,000 men.  The man may have been on the run and desired a better way of life.  Jesus met the man and found the man wanted to be normal.  Jesus healed the man, but after this was happening a herd of swine stampeded into the sea.  People and pet animals have been observed to have jumped off bridges.  What causes this is not known.  Why lemming rats stampeded themselves into water and drowned is not known.  Why whales beached themselves is not known.  Why people under medical care and medication committed suicide is not know.  Why legion soldiers were made to charge to their deaths is not known.  Why people did crime without motive is as mysterious as attributing demons to aberrant behavior.  Some people have known they were being tempted, but did not know why.  It is difficult to overcome temptation to sin.

There is no cliff overhanging the sea at this spot.  It is true the lake level was different in those days, but we do not know by how much.  A hydroelectric project designed in the 1930's lowered the Jordan River bed where it flowed out of the lake by a few feet.  Currently the lake is near historic lows as Israel has demanded more and more water from the lake for people in other parts of Israel.  The swine would have needed to run across a level space after running down the mountain if they were to get into the lake. 

One pilgrim could not imagine a herd of pigs being able to drown themselves along the shore and looked at some of the nearby sheer cliffs and described the place as a "lover's leap" and the swine might have instead ran off the edge of the cliff.

There is a place where the lake bed has a steep drop off close to shore as described by John MacGregor,  The Rob Roy on the Jordan (pgs 378-380), c. 1869, c. 1904:

Between Wady Semakh (at the Kursi Junction) and Wady Fik (near Kibbutz En Gev) there are at least four distinct localities where every feature in the Scripture account of this incident may be found in combination.  Above there are rocks with caves in them, very suitable for tombs, and farther down there is ample space for tombs built on sloping ground--a form of sepulture far more prevalent in Scripture times than we are apt to suppose.  A verdant sward is here, with many bulbous roots which swine might feed upon.  And on this I observed--what is an unusual site--a very large herd of oxen, horses, camels, sheep, asses, and goats, all feeding together.  It was evident that the pasturage was various and enough for all--a likely place for "a herd of swine feeding on the mountain."

Khersa, near this, in ruins, was probably the Gergesa of old, and, as has been observed repeatedly by authors, this might well be in the "country of the Gadarenes," though a considerable distance from the town of Gadara.  We are told that, "the whole herd of swine ran violently down a steep place."  It does not say a "high" place, but "steep," and that they "ran" (not, they "fell") down this "into the sea."  There are several steeps near the sea here, but only one so close to the water as to make it sure that, if a herd "ran violently" down, they would go "into the sea."  But the place which I regard as most likely for the site of this event is at the end of the short plain under some rocks, and near the green plateau, where the swine could feed.  Here, for a full half-mile, the beach is of a form different from any other round the lake, and from any I have noticed in any lake or sea before.  It is flat until close to the edge.  There a hedge of oleanders fringes the end of the plain, and immediately below these is a gravel beach, inclined so steep that, when my boat was at the shore I could not see over the top even by standing up, while the water alongside is so deep that it covered my paddle (seven feet long) when dipped in vertically a few feet from the shore.  Now, if the swine rushed along this short plain towards this hedge of underwood (and in the delta of Semakh, their usual feeding place would be often amount to thick brushwood of that kind), they would instantly pass through the shrubs, and then down the steep gravel beyond into deep water, where they would surely be drowned. 

Photo of the Semakh Delta July 2006, Lake Tiberias

Jesus healed the mentally ill man and the man desired to follow Jesus.  Jesus forbade him, yet asked him to go tell his experience of being healed to others.  The man went to the cities of the Decapolis and told the good news.

 

Some of my earlier descriptions of Kursi and the tale of the man possessed by a legion on the pages of  Israel Photos III.