On the Road to Jerusalem With Jesus

According to the gospels, Jesus routinely took the road to Jerusalem for the annual feasts. The main feasts were Passover (in early spring), Pentecost (in late spring), and Tabernacles (in early fall). But we know Jesus also spent at least one Hanukkah (early winter) in Jerusalem.  

For most of his life, Jesus lived in Nazareth, a village in Galilee about 60 miles north of Jerusalem. And for the last few years, he made his headquarters in Capernaum, another 20 miles or so east of Nazareth. Today, you can drive from Jerusalem to Galilee in less than two hours. 

But Jesus didn’t drive, he walked. Which means this wasn’t a two-hour trip for him, it was a walk of several days.

Jesus had two main routes he could take to get to Jerusalem. We don’t know what people called these routes in the first century, so we’ll make up reasonable names:

• The Samaritan Road
• The Jordan Way

These were very different routes, each with pluses and minuses.

Walking the Samaritan Road

Coming from Nazareth to Jerusalem, the shorter route was definitely the Samaritan Road, which ran more or less straight south. As the crow flies, the distance is 64 miles, but it had to be at least 70 miles by road.

A typical traveler can walk 15 to 20 miles in a day, which means that you could walk from Nazareth to Jerusalem in about 4 days. If you set a very aggressive pace, you might be able to make it in 3 days. If you were really taking it easy, you could do it in 5.

Most of the Samaritan Road goes through the hill country of Samaria and Judea at altitudes up to about 2000 feet. In a hot country like Israel, that would mean slightly cooler temperatures. 

But it would also mean going through Samaria, which was enemy territory. We know that occasionally the Samaritans harassed Jews coming to the feasts. Sometimes they killed people.

That’s one reason many travelers chose a different route.

Walking the Jordan Way

Many travelers from Galilee did an end run on Samaria. They’d cut southeast from Galilee until they reached the Jordan River. Then they’d take the road straight south along the river until they reached Jericho. Finally, they turned west and hiked up into the Judean hill country to Jerusalem.

From Nazareth to Jerusalem by the Jordan Way was probably 85 to 90 miles. So a reasonable time to walk that distance would be 5 days. Again, you could set an aggressive pace, and you might make it in only 4 days. Or taking things slower than normal, you might take 6 days. 

So the Jordan Way took about a day longer than the Samaritan Road. This route drops in elevation most of the way from Nazareth to Jericho. Nazareth is roughly 1200 feet above sea level, while Jericho is about 850 feet below sea level.) The lower the elevation, the higher the average temperatures. So this route was definitely hotter.

The final day’s hike from Jericho up to Jerusalem would have been tough. The change in altitude is almost 3000 feet over a course of about 16 miles. That’s more than a 3% grade. 

This last day of the journey was the infamous Jericho Road—arid, rocky, lonely, and steep. Here’s a picture I took of this country on a recent trip to Israel: 

The Jericho Road was notorious for bandits, so the smart traveler went in a largish group and took a weapon.

But the one advantage of the Jordan Way was that you didn’t have to go through Samaria.

Which Route Did Jesus Take?

Jesus appears to have used both roads. We have a story about him walking through Samaria.  And we have a story about him going through Jericho.  

We don’t know which way he took more often. If I had to guess, I’d say that he made the decision based mostly on temperature, and partly on time. 

In early spring, nights could be cold, and the Jordan Way would be warmer and therefore more inviting. 

In late spring and early fall, days could be hot, and the Samaritan Road would be cooler and more tempting.

But Jesus would also have weighed the cost of the extra day to go by the Jordan Way. Jesus wasn’t wealthy. He and his brothers worked as day-laborers. Every day on the road to Jerusalem was a day not earning money on the job.

Where Did Jesus Sleep?

Not everyone in Galilee could come to Jerusalem for three or four or five weeks at a stretch, so probably most Galileans stayed home for most feasts. But even so, there would have been several thousand people on the road to Jerusalem at the same time as Jesus.

There were no chains of motels that could handle that many people all at once. 

Which means most everyone camped out along the way. 

You wouldn’t need a tent for camping, which is good because a tent would be too much weight to lug along.

All you really needed was a good wool cloak. Everybody had one. A heavy wool cloak was a standard part of your wardrobe, precisely because you could both wear it and sleep in it. 

A cloak would typically be big enough to wrap twice around your body, which made it a very effective sleeping bag.

You could carry your cloak in a leather bag slung on your shoulders. You could also carry food in the bag. 

Other Necessities on the Road to Jerusalem

You wouldn’t need to carry extra clothes. You could just wear the same wool tunic for the whole trip to Jerusalem and back. Yes, it would get dirty after a few weeks, and it would smell, but everyone else would be dirty and smelly too, so it wouldn’t be a big deal.

But you did need to carry water. When you walk miles every day in the hot sun, water is essential. You could carry water in a waterskin on your shoulder. You could refill it along the way, mixing it with beer or wine to kill germs.

You also needed a long cloth belt to wrap around your waist. If you folded this correctly, it held your money safely. A few silver dinars would buy food and drink for the whole trip.

Finally, you might slip a short knife into your belt as a defense against bandits.

And that’s all you needed. Just enough gear to get you safely to Jerusalem and back. Light enough to carry.

Jesus and his family and friends made this trip many times over the years. 

What do you think? Does the road to Jerusalem with Jesus sound like an adventure worth taking? In my forthcoming series of novels, Crown of Thorns, we’ll take that journey several times.