Gergesa

Gergesa (also Gerasa) was a site on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee proposed as the location of the miracle in which Jesus cast a legion of demons into a herd of pigs (Mark 5:1). The identification of the exact site has been a persistent textual and geographical puzzle, since the three synoptic Gospels give three different readings: Gadarenes (Matthew), Gerasenes (Mark and Luke), and Gergesenes (some manuscripts). Origen proposed Gergesa as the most likely site based on his geographical knowledge, identifying it with a cliff on the eastern shore where pigs could plausibly rush into the lake.

The site proposed by Origen corresponds roughly to the location of modern Kursi on the northeastern shore of the Sea of Galilee, where a fifth-century Byzantine church commemorating the miracle has been excavated. The steep slopes descending toward the water at this point match the Gospel description of the herd rushing down into the sea. The textual variant Gergesa may preserve a genuine local place name unknown from other ancient sources, or it may represent Origen's harmonizing conjecture to reconcile the geographic difficulty of Gerasa — which lies thirty miles from the lake.