Walking Fast

“His progress is so rapid.” I share in that conclusion about the way Jesus traveled, but what makes me think that way?

The quote is from scholar C. C. McCown, who noted concerning his walking experience: “The writer knows from having made both journeys on foot, but not in one day.” So why is it that Jesus makes the trip in one day while McCown did not? Which time-frame is normal?

Even in 1938 when McCown wrote, the western world was speeding up and McCown’s perspective of Jesus with it. I tend to think that if it took the human McCown more than one day, then the same for Jesus.

Here’s the funny thing. This is one time I’m willing to concede Jesus’ divinity. Being rushed is human. Being divine means something higher is driving steadying you.

C. C. McCown characterizes Luke’s central section in the full quotation as follows:

The opening verse pitches the dominant tone for the whole narrative: with the cross before him, Jesus turns his face steadfastly from Galilee toward Jerusalem (9:51, 53). His progress is so rapid, in the concise account, that the very first night brings him to Samaria to sleep, not in the city where first shelter was sought, but in some village to which he moves on after a rebuff (9:52, 56). Whether the route was from Tell Hûm either across Esdraelon by way of Tabor to Jenîn or Qubatîyeh, or down the Jordan Valley by way of Beisân to some village in the mountains south of it, this would be no small achievement, as the writer knows from having made both journeys on foot, but not in one day.++

++C. C. McCown, “The Geography of Luke’s Central Section,” Journal of Biblical Literature 57, no. 1 (1938): 53.