The Gerasene Demoniac

Paper Summary:

This paper is an attempt to give a hermeneutical perspective to the synoptic gospel stories of the Gerasene Demoniac though the use of textural criticism, addiction/recovery criticism and African-American/minority criticism. It is also an attempt to show how the nature of suffering and its attendant existential process inherent in the addiction process is a vital tool of the faith dynamic.

Outline:
Abstract
Introduction
Analytical Sections
A Textual Critique of the Three Passages
Critique of the Accounts Through the Lens of Addiction
"Stony The Road We Trod": A Co-Minority Perspective
Conclusion

From the Paper:

"Just like the demon's could not help but tell the truth of themselves, and of Jesus, I think that "possession" by addiction is the process whereby our "dark side" as Jung would say, tell us the truth about ourselves through our actions and the destruction they cause when more conscious parts of ourselves can't or won't tell ourselves those truths. The crucible of suffering in ever greater degrees of addiction forces us to "call out" the reality of ourselves and the reality of our lives just as the demons "called out" or "named" Christ. In a related, 12-step spirituality is very clear, just like Jesus wanted to make sure that people would not fixate on him at the expense of their faith relationship with his Father, so 12-step adamantly refuses to become captured in one concept of the divine or the religious which would lead to what the program refers to as "spiritual bypass"' fixating on the spiritual outcome at the expense of the spiritual process. "

Sample of Sources Used:

• Augustus The Facts. In Wikipedia.
• Borg, M., & Crossen, D. (2007). The First Christmas. Harper Collins.
• Coogan, M. D., Brettler, M. Z., Newsom, C. A., & Perkins, P. (2007). Introduction to the Gospels. In M. D. Coogan, M. Z. Brettler, C. A. Newsom, & P. Perkins (Eds.), The New Oxford Annotated Bible (Augmented Third Addition ed., pp. [4-6 New Testament]). Oxford, New York: Oxford Press.
• Coogan, M. D., Brettler, M. Z., Newsom, C. A., & Perkins, P. (2007). The New Oxford Annotated Bible. Oxford New York: Oxford University Press.
• divus, or divi (Roman deification measurement. (n.d.). Retrieved from Encyclopedia Britannica.

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