Scientists say they have discovered the place where Jesus, according to the biblical gospels, cast out demons from a possessed man into a herd of pigs. Dr. Scott Stripling, Director of Excavations for Associates for Biblical Research (ABR), states that a combination of clues from biblical texts, geographical data and the submerged ruins of the port led him to the right place. The right place should be the shore of the Sea of Galilee near the city of Kursi in Israel.
“All three gospels say there was a rock nearby. All three say there were graves nearby. And they tell us that Jesus came by boat from the west side to the east side,” Stripling said. The biblical story according to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke describes that Jesus swam across the Sea of Galilee where he met a man possessed by a host of demons. The spirits begged to be sent to a herd of pigs, which then tumbled down a steep slope into a lake and drownedwhich corresponds to geographic footprints near the new discovery.
Stripling and his team found their way around a massive ancient tank used to store freshly caught fish. “We felt the stones before we saw them. Massively machined blocks forming a double pier, a classic harbor structure,” Stripling described. He drew his information from a 1985 excavation that documented dozens of ancient harbors along the Sea of Galilee, including the one at Kursi. The harbor disappeared when the lake level rose, and most people forgot about it.
The geographical agreement with the biblical description is obvious. Jesus’ journey from Capernaum to the eastern side of the lake corresponds to the place where Kursi stands today. Graves on a nearby hillside and a sheer cliff less than 50 meters from the water allow a herd of pigs to tumble into the lake. “Within two hundred meters of the harbor, every biblical detail matches,” says Stripling.
On top of the hill above Kursi stands a Byzantine chapel known as the Chapel of Miracles, which has preserved its original mosaic floor; according to some researchers, pigs can be seen on it. Pilgrims have worshiped this place for more than 15 centuries. Stripling added: “The Byzantines built where the memory of the people of the time met the geography. They were probably based on Origen’s studies.” After Jesus’ miracle, the healed man begged to follow the wise man, but he was sent home to tell what God had done.
