Mark 5:1ff and Matthew 8:28ff talk about one demon possessed man and two demon possessed men respectively. How are the differences justified?
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This question needs to be crosslinked at least to the following and possibly closed as a duplicate. hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/68819/…– nickalhCommented Oct 20, 2021 at 9:15
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4 Answers
The accounts in Mark 5:1ff and Matthew 8:28ff are clearly the same story, in spite of Matthew having two demon-possessed men, to Mark's one. Jesus had crossed the Sea of Galilee, there was a herd of swine and the many demons implored Jesus to release them into the herd of swine.
It is the strong consensus of scholars that Mark's Gospel was written first and that Matthew's Gospel was substantially copied from it. This means that the author of Matthew's Gospel copied the story from Mark and for some reason chose to alter his story.
Mark's story is certainly compelling, even having the demons answer for the possessed man, saying their name is Legion, "for there are many of us." This formula was copied in Luke's Gospel, but omitted in Matthew. Dennis R. MacDonald presents a good case in The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark that this story was based on Homer's epics and that the name 'Legion' is a reversal of Odysseus' reply when asked his name and he said 'Nobody'. If the author of Matthew recognised the parallel, he might well have chosen to remove the reference to the name Legion and otherwise simplify the story. Including the second demoniac could have been intended to restore some of the story drama.
answered Jun 16, 2015 at 7:19
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Very interesting. The Odysseus connection would be quite clever of the author of Mark, if intentional. As for the changes to the story made by Matthew, it strike me as being similar to mistakes a non-native speaker might make, in particular overly literal translations of idiomatic expressions. Could Matthew have simply mistook "we are Legion" as literally meaning there was more than one demon possessed man present?– David HCommented Jun 21, 2015 at 19:37
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1@DavidH Thank you for your expression of interest. Remembering that 'Legion' is a very large number, as in a military formation, I would find it hard to imagine a well-educated Greek speaker mistaking this for just two. Incidentally, he was fluent in Greek (at least more than Hebrew) as he clearly preferred the LXX over the Hebrew scriptures, so he did not copy and write in Greek out of necessity. Commented Jun 21, 2015 at 22:08
I believe the differences of Mark 5 and Matthew 8 is best explained in the author's focus. In Mark's gospel after the demons are cast into the pigs and Jesus is about to leave the man asks to go with Jesus, but Jesus tells him no, and to go to his home and tell the people what the Lord has done for him and the mercy shown to him. This is absent in Matthew's account. It seems only one person asks to go with Jesus, and this is what Mark wants to focus on. Sure there were two, but only one went and talked with Jesus and that conversation is what Mark wanted to highlight so he just ignored the other guy in his account.
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You are sharing essentially the same viewpoint I expressed in my answer to virtually this same question, posted here: hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/68819/…– PolyhatCommented Oct 20, 2021 at 1:41
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Mark 5:1ff and Matthew 8:28ff talk about one demon possessed man and two demon possessed men respectively.
Assume the two passages describe the same incident. Mark used 20 verses describing just one man. Matthew used 7 verses only describing two men. In this case, Matthew skipped many of the details while Mark focused on just the 'star' demon-possessed man but skipped his sidekick.
How are the differences justified?
Different authors, different focuses.
Mark focuses on one but that in no way suggests another wasn’t present. My friend and I may run into two people at the park, but when I tell the story I may only focus on the one I had the greatest interaction with while my friend may give an overview that gets straight to the end point. I also agree Mark may have focused on the one because he was the only one who wished to follow Jesus.
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