The Greek adverb antiperan means on the other side, on the opposite shore, or across. Appearing only once in the New Testament (Luke 8:26), it describes the geographic location of the Gerasenes — the region on the far shore of the Sea of Galilee to which Jesus crossed in order to heal a demon-possessed man.
Though antiperan appears only once, its single use anchors one of the most dramatic episodes in the Synoptic Gospels. Jesus and His disciples crossed the sea — enduring the terrifying storm Jesus stilled — to arrive at the 'region of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee' (Luke 8:26). There Jesus encountered a man possessed by a legion of demons, naked, living among tombs, uncontrollable by any chains. The crossing to the antiperan side is theologically significant: Jesus did not stay only in Jewish territory. He crossed over to Gentile-influenced territory, to an unclean region (tombs, pigs), to meet the most extreme case of human brokenness. The Gospel comes to the other side — to the far shore, to the uncrossable, to the place where the hopeless live. The healed man becomes the first Gentile missionary, sent to declare what God had done for him (Luke 8:39).