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Bible Dictionaries
Gadara
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
or GADARA . A town whose ruins (extensive, but in recent years much destroyed by the natives) bear the name of Umm Keis , about six miles S. E. of the Sea of Galilee. It was a town of the Decapolis, probably Greek in origin, and was the chief city of Peræa. The date of its foundation is unknown, its capture by Antiochus (b.c. 218) being the first event recorded of it. It was famous for its hot baths, the springs of which still exist. The narrative of the healing of the demoniac, according to Matthew 8:28 , is located in the ‘country of the Gadarenes ,’ a reading repeated in some MSS of the corresponding passage of Lk. ( Luke 8:26 ), where other MSS read Gergesenes . The probability is that neither of these is correct, and that we ought to adopt a third reading, Gerasenes , which is corroborated by Mark 5:1 . This would refer the miracle not to Gadara, which, as noted above, was some distance from the Sea of Galilee, but to a more obscure place represented by the modern Kersa , on its Eastern shore.
R. A. S. Macalister.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Gadara'. Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdb/g/gadara.html. 1909.
