Text:

Instead of Gerasēnōn ‘Gerasenes’ of the great majority of modern editions of the Greek text, Textus Receptus and Vogels have Gadarenōn ‘Gaderenes’ (the correct reading in Mt. 8.28).

Exegesis:

tēn chōran tōn Gerasēnōn ‘the region of the Gerasenes’ (cf. 1.5 for chōra ‘region’): for the exact identification of this region, which is disputed.

hupēntēsen (only here in Mark) ‘he met,’ ‘he encountered’; sometimes in a hostile sense (cf. Lk. 14.31).

ek tōn mnēmeiōn ‘out of the tombs,’ i.e. ‘coming out of the tombs’ (cf. Goodspeed, Manson, The Modern Speech New Testament).

mnēmeion (6.29; 15.46; 16.3, 5, 8) ‘grave,’ ‘tomb’ (synonym of mnēma ‘tomb’ vv. 3, 5).

Translation:

For difficulties involved in expressions of ‘going to the other side,’ see 4.35.

The country of the Gerasenes may be variously translated, depending upon the usage of the receptor language in question, e.g. ‘land where the Gerasenes lived,’ ‘land which belonged to the Gerasene people,’ ‘region inhabited by the Gerasene tribe.’

The apposition involved in the expressions to the other side … to the country … may be treated in some instances as two paratactically combined clauses: ‘they went to the other side of the lake; this was the land of the Gerasene people.’

For problems involved in verbs for ‘coming’ and ‘going’ see 1.14. In many languages one must translate came to the other side as ‘arrived at the other side’ and come out of the boat as ‘went out of…’ or ‘climbed out of….’

The word tombs refers either to cave-like rooms cut into the rock or small mausoleum-like structures, which might provide some shelter for the demoniac. If people have a custom of burying the dead in such places, there is generally no problem, except where, as in one language, the informants insisted that the demoniac could not come out of more than one tomb at a time, hence, ‘met him, coming out of the tomb’ or ‘met him, coming from where the tombs were.’ On the other hand, if people bury only in holes in the ground, it would be quite misleading to imply that the demoniac came out of the graves in the ground. In such instances, the closest equivalent is usually ‘came from where the dead were buried,’ i.e. from the cemetery.

For unclean spirit see 1.26.

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on the Gospel of Mark. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1961. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .