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Galilee: in the footsteps of Jesus · Stop 13 · Day 3
Kursi
In the Bible
On the other side of the lake Jesus was met by a man with an unclean spirit; the spirits went into a herd of pigs, which rushed down the steep bank into the sea.
On the other side of the sea, they arrived in the region of the Gerasenes. As soon as Jesus got out of the boat, He was met by a man with an unclean spirit, who was coming from the tombs.There on the nearby hillside a large herd of pigs was feeding. So the demons begged Jesus, “Send us to the pigs, so that we may enter them.” He gave them permission, and the unclean spirits came out and went into the pigs, and the herd of about two thousand rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the water.When Jesus arrived on the other side in the region of the Gadarenes, He was met by two demon-possessed men coming from the tombs. They were so violent that no one could pass that way.Tradition
Manuscripts of the Gospels name the region differently: of the Gadarenes, the Gerasenes, the Gergesenes. By a tradition known to Origen, it is Gergesa on the eastern shore; the Byzantines built a monastery here.
Here today
The ruins of a large monastery and church of c. 500, found in 1970 during road works, and a small chapel up the slope by a rock.
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Land outlines: Natural Earth (public domain).