A Fresh Look at Bible Stories

October 3, 2007, 9:30 am; posted by
Filed under Articles, Chloe  | 4 Comments

There once was a man who was possessed by many unclean spirits. He lived among the hills in the region of the Gerasenes, cutting himself and crying out at all hours. He called himself Legion, and even chains could not restrain him. One day, as Jesus was getting out of a boat, the man came and started calling out to him in a loud voice. The spirits begged Jesus not to torture them, then asked to be sent into a herd of 2000 nearby pigs. Jesus consented, and the unclean spirits drove the pigs over a cliff and into the water to be drowned.

Fifty or so years before this incident, there was a Roman legion called Legio IX Hispana, which disappeared mysteriously from the meticulous Roman records. Some say the legion was overtaken by robbers. Others say it was swallowed by the earth for the sins of the Roman Empire. Still others say the legion was made up entirely of men who refused to ask for directions or cook for themselves, so they all starved to death in Siberia. Whatever the case may be, the fate of the legion has remained a mystery…..until now.

It has been proposed that perhaps this legion was killed in a brutal manner, before its time, and far from home (all ingredients for a proper haunting). What if this legion of wronged Gentile souls found its way into this poor Jewish man and made him so strong that even chains couldn’t bind him? What if they so longed for pork that they actually desired to be pigs? What if the only way for their deaths to be avenged was for them to get out of the kosher man and into the unclean pigs? And what if all demons in the gospels are actually ghosts?

What if, indeed?

Now, it must be admitted that few people believe this story. Why, when my Luke-Acts professor suggested we all get under the conference table and start a camp fire so he could tell us a ghost story, I thought for sure he was completely bonkers. But after he made the disclaimer that he didn’t actually believe what he was telling us, I began to see the light. This must be true, if my educated Bible professor doesn’t believe it. So open up your mind, forget all you’ve been taught, and read the story on a stormy night, preferably Halloween.

And don’t forget, gullible isn’t in the dictionary.


Comments

4 Comments to “A Fresh Look at Bible Stories”

  1. Djere on October 3rd, 2007 7:24 pm

    Well, Chloe, unless the Christ was physically wandering the earth and being written about in the second century, I don’t think that particular legion (which was likely destroyed in either the 120s or 160s) was the legion in question.

    I know.

    You don’t actually believe it.

  2. Djere on October 3rd, 2007 7:25 pm

    Second Century Anno Dominio, I should clarify.

  3. Marcus on October 4th, 2007 7:32 am

    According to some church fathers, there are two “species” of demon. The first is your typical demon–the rebellious angel. The second is the spirit of the dead Nephilim–the hybrid product of angels and humanity in Genesis 6.

    Lactantius tells us that, upon death, these Nephilim were barred from leaving the terrestrial plane. A number of church fathers attribute diseases to this latter kind of demon (what is called “the demons of earth”) who prowl the earth, coveting the flesh they once possessed and angered with humanity because we get a “proper” afterlife.

    I always found it odd that angels (who seem so much cooler and smarter than humans) would, upon “falling,” become the bogeymen whose only desire is to invest popular music and run amok. Personally, I think that the activities of demons is much more subtle and nuanced and their’s is an influence over entire cultural movements… not Elvis vinyls and jack-o-lanterns. These Nephilim, on the other hand, seem to be limited in scope and more directly involved with chaos and disease (rather than a subtle Satanic campaign). All serve the same ends–to lead men astray–but I think there is a division of labor, as it were.

    While I do believe that spirits of dead humans can be seen today (as in the historic precedent of necromantic witch of Endor and Solomon), I do not think this necessarily means that these visitations can “possess” us in any real sense. That seems to be the provenance of demons and half-demons.

  4. John on March 27th, 2008 6:28 am

    I have a question about this story. didn’t the pig farmer get mad? and my bigger question is, why was he raising pigs? it is my understanding that nobody in that area ate pork.

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