Every time I have ever studied this passage with other people, it seems to me that we have been all too willing to get ourselves distracted by the thought of first-century people walking around with what Mark called an "unclean spirit," which is rendered by the even scarier "demon" in some translations. Conversation about the passage often runs along the favorite twin therapeutic tracks of the twentieth century: psychological and/or physiological causes for illnesses which today are curable, but which then were chalked up to spirits.

The fact is, in the first century, almost any unfortunate experience, particularly in regard to health, was in those days categorized as some form of demon possession. If one had a headache, there wasn't much to do about it except pray that it would go away. …