Abstract

The following reading of the Gerasene Demoniac makes a case for this event as an exorcism performed by Jesus. The strongly religious elements of Roman military life provide a starting point. The history of Roman military presence within the Decapolis makes the identity of the Demoniac as a victim of some form of military trauma plausible. The appropriateness of a biopsychosocial model of healing, rather than a biomedical one, is then reviewed. That the healing might then be located within the sphere of the demonic or supernatural as an exorcism is then ascertained by noting the deeply spiritual elements of Roman military life and identity. The Demoniac as presented as a victim of Roman imperial policy who is restored to wholeness by Jesus. What is envisioned here is visible elsewhere in the NT: a challenge to social and political convention by his personal authority rather than political might.