The Gerasene Pericope and Disability Studies: Irony,Empire,and (In)complete Reintegration in Mk 5.1–20

Abstract

This article rereads Mk 5.1–20 through Disability Studies and Mad Studies, presenting the Gerasene episode as social critique rather than a simple miracle narrative. ‘Legion’ functions as a marker of Roman domination and communal labelling that produce social disability and social death. Close analysis of δαιμονίζομαι, λεγιών, and σωϕρονέω shows how Mark grammatically preserves the man’s personhood and depicts restored judgment with social implications. The narrative’s irony exposes sanist assumptions and economic interests underlying the townspeople’s fear and their request for Jesus to leave. Jesus redirects the man’s desire ‘to be with’ him into a commission ‘to tell’ in the Decapolis, relocating authorized speech to a restored Gentile witness. Reintegration is reframed as vocation rather than return—(in)complete socially yet realized missionally through testimony that challenges colonial-sanist control and reorders communal value.