Mike Bull offers this suggestive reply e to my earlier post on the Romans and the swine:
Based on the structure of the early chapters in Matthew, the story of the Gadarene is a Day of Atonement ( http://www.bullartistry.com.au/wp/2009/09/08/why-jesus-healed-some/ ).
Matt 1 – Genesis
Matt 2 – Exodus (Passed over by Herod’s sword, etc.) . . .
Judgment begins at the house of God, so perhaps Jesus is not symbolically casting Romans out of Judea; He is casting the “intermarriage” with Rome out of the Judeans. As with Saul and David, the sending of the troubling spirit and the Holy Spirit are one event.
The Gadarene is the first goat, cleansed in the “Holy Place” cave tomb. The swine are Jews with uncircumcised hearts, the second goat who takes on the demoniac’s self-harming mania and carries the compromise into the Gentile Sea.
The Herods, like Saul, were “kings before God’s time.” They desired to be kings like the Gentiles, free from God’s authority, so God gave them to the Gentile authorities.
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