[dwashbur]

Jesus goes to the region of the Gerasenes and meets a demonized man. The demons beg him to cast them into a nearby herd of pigs.

This is Jewish country. Who's raising pigs, and why??

[Wondergirl]

I put on my librarian hat and found this:
Top Ten Reasons Why There Were Pigs in Gerasenes (Lk 8 )

10 ) It was the eastern side of the Sea of Galilee, the area of the Decapolis. Lots of non-Jews lived there.
9 ) They were wild [feral] hogs feeding near the cliffs. The nearby shepherds were sheep shepherds, not hog herders.
8 ) Their pork was kosher, kept out of the camp for 7 days, and circumcised. This made them fit for consumption. Besides, it was Christmas!
7 ) The pigs weren’t for eating. They were ..ummm ..for producing manure to …fertilize crops.
6 ) There were lots of laws they didn’t keep. Why should this surprise us? “You received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it!” (Acts 7:53)
5 ) They weren’t real Jews – They were JINOs!
4 ) As R. Sol Urbin Ohel Moed teaches us, “Technically, the greek word for ‘swine’ is ‘choiros’, which many people think means ‘swine’, but in the Akkadian, and so with the Syriac, it really refers to an indigenous type of little lamb owned by sea-faring peasants, suitable for pets, grazing, shishkabob and MLT (Mutton, Lettuce and Tomato) sandwiches.”
3 ) “Pigs?? What pigs?? Oh, you mean THOSE pigs!! Ha, ha.. yeah… lemme ummm.. tell ya about those pigs..”
2 ) Like any rational redneck, they smelled their Gentile neighbors having a pork BBQ and said “DAAAANG, Hoss! That sure does smell good! We gotta git us some!”
1 ) [your turn. why do you think there were pigs there?]
http://www.linearconcepts.com/archives/2011

Here are more explanations:
https://www.scripture-sense.com/post...ng-of-mark-5-1

[dwashbur]

1) We raise them for the hides to make footballs out of

Although I can see 7) being a possibility.

1) Solomon said finery on a contentious woman is like a gold ring in a pig's snout. We're testing that proverb

[jlisenbe]

My understanding is that it was more Gentile country and not so much Jewish. It would have counted as being in the Decapolis on the east side (as WG mentioned) which was a collection of largely Greco-Roman cities. If so, then a herd of pigs makes perfect sense, and it could likely account for Jesus not allowing the man to go with him since a Gentile disciple would have been a problem.

Then there's the question of why Matthew mentions two men but Mark and Luke only mention one. Perhaps one of the men especially was thankful and wanted to follow Jesus, so he was thus more strongly connected with the account in the memory of most witnesses. It's also possible that the one man was still alive at the time of Mark or Luke being written and so would have been keyed on as a person who could verify the story.