[pby]

Nothing has been jimmied.

Good grief...your worse than one of those creationist caricatures that evos contrive. You know...the one that sees the boogey-man in all things "science".

Translate the greek word "orion" from Mark 7:31. Some say "region"; others "district"; and/or etc. Many greek scholars say that it is best translated "on the border" (as the word orion has its origin in the word oros, which means mountain, a frequent boundary or border of an area).

In any case, the region, the district, or the border could all mean the same thing and be by the Sea of Galilee.

One thing is certain, no matter how you translate "orion", you can't prove that Mark's statement is inaccurate geographically.

[Right Wing Professor]

The Greek text says 'ana meson ton orion dekapoleos'. Ana meson translates as through the middle of; orion can be 'boundaries' , similarly to Latin fines. Clearly this means through the boundaries of the Decapolis. The Vulgate is a word-for-word translation of the Greek. The point is, they went through he territory of the Decapolis to get to the Sea of Galilee, which is geographically ridiculous if you're coming from Tyre and Sidon. And since you mention Matthew 15, that also states they ended up by the Sea of Galilee, though it doesn't mention the Decapolis (the author of Matthew was likely a Jewish Christian who knew Palestine, so he probably decided to leave out the bit about the Decapolis).

One thing is certain, no matter how you translate "orion", you can't prove that Mark's statement is inaccurate geographically.

I can prove it's like going from D.C. to New York via Boston.

The logical conclusion is that the author of Mark was working from (at best) someone else's account, and got this bit wrong.