Talk:Exorcism of the Gerasene demoniac

Move
This article must be moved, as the title is currently a typo, and ungrammatical. It is "demoniac", not "demonic". It needs to be moved to "Exorcism of the Gerasene demoniac".JohnChrysostom (talk) 05:04, 14 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I see no problem. Let us wait 2 or 3 days then if no objections, just move it. But you should probably leave a message for an admin of your choice to delete the target page, or just move to Exorcism of the Gerasene Demoniac. Thanks. History2007 (talk) 09:19, 14 December 2011 (UTC)


 * It is done.JohnChrysostom (talk) 00:37, 18 December 2011 (UTC)


 * The way this was done, through copy and paste, is not the preferred way of moving material. It messes up the history and therefore the attribution. This move required admin tools, as deletion was involved; went ahead and did that. If you need anything else, let me know. --Cúchullain t/ c  01:15, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

"Those tending the pigs ran off and reported this in the town and countryside, and the people went out to see what had happened. When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons, sitting there, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid. Those who had seen it told the people what had happened to the demon-possessed man—and told about the pigs as well. Then the people began to plead with Jesus to leave their region. That is why jesus is evil, and should not be trusted around your bacon." LAST SENTENCE, might want to change that? (forgive me for incorrect formatting of this comment, just had to point this out) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.140.210.66 (talk) 07:00, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Similarities with the 4th Labour of Heracles
During the process of completing the 4th labour (capturing the wild boar of Ares), which is not an easy task "When the goddess turned a wrathful countenance upon a country, as in the story of Meleager, she would send a raging boar, which laid waste the farmers' fields."

Heracles is perplexed as to how to capture the wild boar of Ares, so he visits Chiron at his cave. Chiron is a centaur. Centaurs were notorious for being wild and lusty, overly indulgent drinkers and carousers, given to violence when intoxicated, and generally uncultured delinquents. Chiron advises Heracles to drive it into the thick snow.

Having captured the boar, Heracles bound it and carried it back to Eurystheus, who was frightened of it and ducked down in his half-buried storage pithos, begging Hercules to get rid of the beast. Hercules obliges and threw it in the sea. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.193.173.21 (talk) 02:53, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

WRONG TITLE!!!
"Miracle of the Swine", less often: "Miracle of the Gadarene Swine" is how it's known in English! And these names aren't even automatically Wiki-linked, the Wiki search engine doesn't recognise them - who knows how to fix this? And please change the title to the far more used name. ArmindenArminden (talk) 08:36, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Use WP:RM if you wish to change the title of the page. Anyway, looking at "Miracle of the swine" on Google Books, most of the results are from the 19th century, "Exorcism of the Gerasene demoniac" gets much better hits - all in this century (looking at the first page). One of those is the book My Name is Legion: The Story and Soul of the Gerasene Demoniac. StAnselm (talk) 19:08, 27 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Offhand, Anselm, I think Arminden has a better arument. The policy is all about what is the more common term, not what if the right term or what is the more common term in WP:RSs. I just don't care that much to fight over it.
 * How about we have the lead say "frequently", as in The exorcism of the Gerasene demoniac, frequently known as the "Miracle of the (Gadarene) Swine",....tahc chat 15:25, 28 June 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm happy with "frequently". In any case, the page title should be discussed via WP:RM. StAnselm (talk) 22:22, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

If there are alternative titles to the subject matter, they should be listed and perhaps redirects created for them. Dimadick (talk) 23:24, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

Requested move 18 July 2016

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: No consensus. I think this discussion has run its course, and there's no agreement to change. Either form seems to be used and accepted. &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 13:40, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

Exorcism of the Gerasene demoniac → Miracle of the swine – I guess I'll be the one to take this to an RM (see this discussion). This Ngram shows that no variants of the "Exorcism of the Gadarene/Gerasene demoniac" are the WP:COMMONNAME, but "Miracle of the (Gadarene) swine" is. The "Gerasene" variant doesn't show up, and it's a tossup between including or excluding "Gadarene", so WP:CONCISE would mean that it should be omitted. Of course, the variant names should all be mentioned in the lead and have redirects here. Jujutsuan ( Please notify with &#123;&#123;re&#125;&#125; talk &#x7C; contribs) 22:36, 18 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Oppose: What the ngram shows, actually, is that the "exorcism" title has taken over as the common name. StAnselm (talk) 00:08, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
 * The exorcism title was virtually unknown before the 1980s, and has never gained as much prominence as the miracle title. The vast number of older sources must outweigh the tiny sliver of this new title.  Look at the accumulation of uses rather than just the most recent proportion.  Jujutsuan  ( Please notify with &#123;&#123;re&#125;&#125; talk &#x7C; contribs) 01:03, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
 * See also 's comment at the RM on Summa Theologica; I believe he's right, and I'm about to withdraw that nomination on the same grounds. Like with that RM, the present name is still a tossup with no decisive winner by any significant margin, and the old mentions carry more weight.   Jujutsuan  ( Please notify with &#123;&#123;re&#125;&#125; talk &#x7C; contribs) 01:06, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Well, there is a reason it's changed - the story is about the healing/exorcism of a man; the swine are not the main thing. So almost all Bibles have something like "Jesus Heals a Demon-Possessed Man" as the story heading. The NRSV heading comes very close to this article's name: "Jesus Heals the Gerasene Demoniac". So it's clear that "Miracle of the swine" has faded in popularity. StAnselm (talk) 01:50, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
 * While "miracle of the swine" has undeniably faded, nothing has come to take its place; like I said, the three versions are now in a tossup, with "miracle of the swine" still winning if you count the Gerasene/no Gerasene versions as one and compare them combined against the exorcism version). Actually, I forgot two switch the end date on the NGram to 2008, so this one shows the three names to be almost exactly tied; once again, compare the two "swine" versions combined against the "exorcist" version and the former is still clearly the winner, past and present, with the exorcism name on its own decline while the others are both rising.  Jujutsuan  ( Please notify with &#123;&#123;re&#125;&#125; talk &#x7C; contribs) 02:10, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
 * That's true, but Healing of the Gerasene demoniac is way above them all (over the last forty years). StAnselm (talk) 02:16, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
 * But again, comparing the accumulated mentions, it's still way below the "miracle of the (Gerasene) swine" version (see here). Jujutsuan  ( Please notify with &#123;&#123;re&#125;&#125; talk &#x7C; contribs) 02:32, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
 * But so what? Sure, 100 years ago it was called the "miracle of the swine", but how many of those books from 1900 are still being read and used today? It doesn't tell as anything about the common name in 2016. StAnselm (talk) 03:43, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

See this Ngram which combines the minor variants into groups. "Exorcism" is clearly out; switch to "British English" and it won't even show up. "Healing" only ever rivaled "miracle" from the 1860s to the 1880s, and since the 1950s. Today "healing" and "miracle" are neck-and-neck—no clear winner. Using "healing" also seems to favor American preference; American use of this name is significantly higher than average since the 1970s, whereas it's virtually absent from British usage in the same period. (Switch the "corpus" setting on the Ngram from "English" to "British English" and then "American English" to see what I mean.) We should also avoid WP:RECENTISM; plenty of people read old books, especially with Google Books etc. making many of them as easy to find online as anything recently published. Jujutsuan ( Please notify with &#123;&#123;re&#125;&#125; talk &#x7C; contribs) 04:12, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

Hi. I personally find one-man crusades and endless hair-splitting silly, to be honest. You forget that we are not just talking literature. There are real places connected to this topic: Kursi, Umm Qais, Jarash, Hippos. They exist in Real Life. Archaeologist are still excavating at Kursi and nearby sites on Wadi Samak, pilgrims, tourists, tour guides and guide books are using the names and terms on a daily basis, in spoken and written language. And none of them all uses "exorcism". Go on flying high above the cockoo's nest while life marches on. ArmindenArminden (talk) 08:27, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm honestly not sure what you mean. Which editor is on a "one-man crusade"?  Which name(s) do these travel sources and place names use?  Which name (if either) are you arguing for?  Thanks.  Jujutsuan  ( Please notify with &#123;&#123;re&#125;&#125; talk &#x7C; contribs) 17:54, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

Hi. It was me who has recently suggested "Miracle of the Swine" - this let loose the current dialogue between Anselm and whoever picks up the gauntlet. I appreciate you supporting my position in principle, but the highly technical/academic level of argumentation in the last exchanges makes me smile. And shake my head. That's all. Maybe because I am mainly aware of the term used "on the ground", where there is no discussion going on, the swine win hands down for practical reasons, but I have no idea about what's going on in theological seminaries etc., other than the odd paper I happen upon. Check articles on Kursi published by the Biblical Archaeology Review (BAR), the most popular but still academic magazine dealing with the topic. Or don't, this went on for far too long already. Cheers, ArmindenArminden (talk) 18:34, 19 July 2016 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Duplicate article Legion (demons)
These two should be merged. In ictu oculi (talk) 17:03, 29 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Oppose for now. What are your thoughts regarding the arguments presented at Talk:Legion (demons), ? – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 10:50, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Those arguments seem to me to be invalid. There's clearly only 1 incident and the name "Legion" isn't even used in parallel accounts, so why have two articles in Category:Exorcisms of Jesus. I don't understand History2007's argument when "Legion" is unique to one account of this incident. There is zero additional information in the Legion article, which isn't surprising, since this name is unknown outside this one incident. In what way is this not an unjustified duplicate article? In ictu oculi (talk) 13:09, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Courtesy ping to participants of the previous discussion (History2007, renamed to User:VanishedUserABC, omitted). – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 16:25, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
 * "Legion" is used in Luke 8-- not just Mark 5.
 * Please note that "Legion in popular culture" is longer than these two articles put together. tahc chat 17:33, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
 * That article ought to be blanked almost entirely. Only one (!) entry meets Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/Archive 63, and even that begs the question whether 18th century addresses to the British House of Commons are "popular culture". – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 17:50, 12 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Support. My opinion has not changed since the previous discussion (linked above) - the two articles cover the same subject matter.  The original objector (who, as Finnusertop notes, is no longer active), was concerned to isolate all the miracles of Jesus into separate, self-contained articles, but I don't believe this is a valid Wikipedia policy reason (I'm open to correction on this point, of course), and there were no other positive arguments made against the merger.  With a 1:1 !vote, the previous discussion was closed (correctly) as "No consensus", so the articles remain separate. Tevildo (talk) 18:25, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Switching to support per and 's arguments. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 19:52, 14 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Support original merge (obviously since I started the section), but oppose blanking of the Legion in popular culture fork why? and I agree with that it is complete cruft, but unfortunately that is the only solution that seems to work. See Category:Demons in popular culture, which contains a whole set of similar cruft/trivia collector lists for virtually every "demon"/"angel"/"god" mentioned in ANE or Bible or other Jewish literature, Leviathan in popular culture, Abaddon in popular culture, Lilith in popular culture etc. etc. There is just no alternative - those articles were largely WP:FORKed deliberately to prevent the parent serious article collecting a giant tail of video game etc related references and constant headache for anyone watchlisting the parent article. It's in the nature of a crowd sourced encyclopedia that entertainment and games edits (and in fairness reader views) will massively outnumber views and edits for obscure bits of Biblical or similar demon/angelology. In ictu oculi (talk) 20:14, 14 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Weak oppose, to my surprise.
 * Within the Bible, "Legion as the name of a demon occurs only in Mark 5:9-15 and the parallel in Luke 8:30" . However, there is a long and reasonably well-discussed history of the literary or mythological character "Legion", a demon, outside the Bible (and the mostly non-notable examples in Legion in popular culture).
 * "'Legion' is sometimes taken in late medieval and Renaissance popular literature to be the name of a compound, or hydra-headed devil". For example, fraudulent demoniac Rachel Pindar claimed to be possessed by "5,000 legions" of demons, who gave their name as "Legion", in 1574 . Also, in the apocryphal Testament of Solomon, Legion talks to King Solomon and explains that he is actually "the Lion-Shaped Demon, an Arab by descent"—possibly a pagan god being fit into a demonological narrative . Overall there are definitely enough standalone sources for an article on Legion, the character. It would be possible to discuss all these facts about the character under the heading of their/its/his origin story, but seems awkward. WP:MERGE: Merging should be avoided if [...] The topics are discrete subjects warranting their own articles, even though they might be short FourViolas (talk) 21:57, 14 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Comment. This is an issue that came up in the previous discussion. There's clearly a case for having two separate articles (one about the demon that includes the "in popular culture" section, and one about the miracle) - it's less clear that there's a case for having three separate articles.  Is there a problem with moving the scholarly material from the current "Legion" article to this article?  That, as I understand it, is the current proposal.  We don't need to touch the "In popular culture" article at this stage.  Tevildo (talk) 21:48, 27 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I have no problem with the non-duplicate material (if any) currently in Legion (demons) being merged here. However on the basis of the sources I found, I think this material merge should be without prejudice as to the potential writing of an article about Legion outside of both the Gospels and modern popular culture: in medieval witch hunts, apocryphal texts, and general demonology. FourViolas (talk) 22:33, 27 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Oppose: the miracle story is more than just the demon(s); the demon(s) have taken on a life of their own outside the miracle story. StAnselm (talk) 23:14, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

Copyist error?
The article does not mention what seems to me the obvious possibility, viz that the reason for both Gadara and Gerasa being in play is because of a copyist's error in early text. But I can't cite a source for this idea so I have not added it to the article.

Incidentally, the reference to Origen cites a spelling "Gergasa" but other references to the same place in the article are to "Gergesa". This does not look correct. Deipnosophista (talk) 09:34, 30 October 2019 (UTC)


 * If you're better at making sense of this literature than I am, you might be able to add some material on this topic based on these papers, which mention the possibility of copying errors at various points in the textual tradition. FourViolas (talk) 15:20, 30 October 2019 (UTC)