Bible Lexicons

Γεργεσηνός, Γεργεσηνη, Γεργεσηνον, Gergesene, belonging to the city Gergesa, which is assumed to have been situated on the eastern shore of Lake Gennesaret: Matthew 8:28 Rec. But this reading depends on the authority and opinion of Origen, who thought the variants found in his manuscripts Γαδαρηνῶν and Γερασηνῶν (see these words) must be made to conform to the testimony of those who said that there was formerly a certain city Gergesa near the lake. But Josephus knows nothing of it, and states expressly (Antiquities 1, 6, 2), that no trace of the ancient Gergesites (A. V. Girgashites, cf. B. D. under the word) (mentioned Genesis 15:20; Joshua 24:11) had survived, except the names preserved in the O. T. Hence, in Matthew 8:28 we must read Γαδαρηνῶν (so T Tr WH) and suppose that the jurisdiction of the city Gadara extended quite to the Lake of Gennesaret; but that Matthew (Matthew 8:34) erroneously thought that this city was situated on the lake itself. For in Mark 5:14; Luke 8:34, there is no objection to the supposition that the men came to Jesus from the rural districts alone. (But for the light thrown on this matter by modern research, see B. D. American edition under the word ; Thomson, The Land and the Book, ii. 34ff; Wilson in The Recovery of Jerusalem, p. 286f.)