On the Road With Jesus

According to the gospels, Jesus did a lot of walking. For starters, he walked “all through Galilee.”

That sounds like an exaggeration. Galilee was a big area, right? How could anyone walk all through Galilee? How long would that take? Where would you stay? 

It turns out we can make some good guesses on that. Over the last few years, while working on my Crown of Thorns series of novels, I’ve spent quite a bit of time thinking about what it was like to go on the road with Jesus.

The answers might surprise you.

How Far Across Galilee?

In the time of Jesus, the region of Galilee covered about 750 square miles. It was roughly circular in shape. 

If you remember your high school geometry, you can calculate the diameter of a circle that has an area of 750 square miles.

It works out to just under 31 miles across.

In ancient times, people walked everywhere, and a reasonable number of miles to walk in a day would be 15 to 20 miles.

That means you could walk from one side of Galilee to the other in only two days.

Jesus had a base of operations in Capernaum, which was a good-sized village on the eastern edge of Galilee, perched on the shores of the Sea of Galilee.

It’s a reasonable guess that he wanted to celebrate Shabbat most weekends in Capernaum. (His men would certainly be eager to get home to their wives.) It’s a reasonable guess that he left Capernaum every Sunday morning and went out walking with his followers in some direction. 

Within two days, no matter which direction he went, he’d reach the opposite end of Galilee. He could comfortably spend a couple of days there, and then head back home.

By going a different way every week, Jesus could easily travel through all Galilee and still get back home by Friday afternoon.

How Many Villages in Galilee?

But realistically, how long would it take to visit every single village in Galilee?

As it turns out, not that long.

According to the Jewish historian Josephus, there were 204 villages in Galilee. (Josephus was born about the year AD 37 or 38 in Jerusalem. Shortly after the beginning of the Jewish Revolt in AD 66, Josephus was made general of the Jewish forces in Galilee. His assignment was to defend the region against the Roman forces. So he got to know Galilee pretty well before he was captured by the Romans. He spent most of the rest of his life writing up a history of the Jewish people, with special emphasis on the war in which he played a crucial role.)

Is 204 a reasonable number of villages? Let’s do a little math. If there are 750 square miles and 204 villages, each village would be the main center of commerce for a zone of a little less than 4 square miles. That works out very roughly to a zone of influence with a radius of 1 mile.

Picture the entire region of Galilee dotted with small villages, each with a couple of hundred people who worked the local farms. Neighboring villages would be connected by dirt roads. The distance from one village to the next would be a couple of miles.

That is entirely believable. 

Road Trips With Jesus

Now suppose Jesus stayed each night in a different village when he was out traveling. That would mean he’d visit about 5 villages each week (assuming he stayed in Capernaum every Friday night and Saturday night). 

So in 41 weeks of travel, he could stay overnight in every single village in Galilee.

Probably he didn’t travel much in the rainy season, from say November to March. And probably he spent a couple of months out of the year in Jerusalem at the major festivals. 

If he spent 5 months out of each year on the road, he could easily spend one night in half the villages of Galilee each year. And he could easily walk through most of them several times each year. (If villages were about 2 miles apart, he could walk through 8 to 10 villages every day, no matter which direction he was going.)

What About Hotels?

I used to wonder where Jesus and his followers stayed when they went out on the road. Were there hotels? Did they have to camp out? Were there restaurants to eat at?

It’s important to remember that entertainment was very limited in ancient times. At the end of each day, if the weather was good, the whole village would gather in the village square.

Somebody might tell one of the ancient tales. Or sing a song. Or do a juggling act. Or whatever else.

But on nights when some traveler was visiting a village, the whole village would come out to hear the news. 

Because the only way to get news in ancient times was to hear it from people traveling through.

This means that travelers were respected. Travelers were valued. Travelers were honored.

If you were a traveler, you could stop in any village and ask the elders for hospitality, and the whole village would fight for the honor of giving you food and drink and a place to sleep. Because whoever got that honor would hear the news first, before the rest of the village.

And if you were good at telling tales? If you had a reputation as a famous rabbi? If rumors ran wild that you could heal the sick? 

You’d have no problem finding a home to stay in, every night you were on the road.

We can’t know exactly what it was like to go on the road with Jesus.

But I think we can make a reasonable guess.