{"id":938,"date":"2026-05-07T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.spendayearwithjesus.com\/djp\/?p=938"},"modified":"2025-04-23T05:53:36","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T10:53:36","slug":"feast-travel-routes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wjes.us\/b\/?p=938","title":{"rendered":"Feast Travel Routes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Have you driven cross-country maybe for a wedding or a family reunion? After everyone gathers and the small talk begins to fade, eventually the conversation resurges as weary travelers discuss the pros-and-cons of various road routes \u2013 longer interstates and shorter two-lanes, construction, traffic density, and scenery.<\/p>\n<p>Three times a year, Jesus&#8217; community made the trip to Jerusalem for the spring feasts and the fall feasts. There were 3 routes to Jerusalem from Galilee:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>the western coast road Via Maris,<\/li>\n<li>the central highland road through the Samaritan hill country,<\/li>\n<li>and the eastern Jordan River Valley road through Perea (also known as the Transjordan).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The coast road was out of the way from Jesus&#8217; starting and ending points. From central Galilee, the most direct route was the road through Samaria.<\/p>\n<p>Ancient historian Josephus makes the following generalization, &#8220;It was the custom of the Galileans, when they came to the holy city at the festivals, to take their journeys through the country of the Samaritans&#8221; (<i>Antiquities<\/i> 20.118).<\/p>\n<p>Starting from Capernaum, it makes sense for Jesus to take the third route through the Jordan valley &#8212; walking\u00a0along the sea of Galilee, taking the eastern road along the Jordan River, then from Jericho up into the hills to Jerusalem.**<\/p>\n<p>Jesus went through Jericho on his final journey to Jerusalem (Mk 10:46).<\/p>\n<p>Shortest route appears to be the consensus among students of Jesus&#8217; story. The Jordan Valley route is a compelling alternative. Jesus\u2019 experience includes both routes (Mk 10:46; Lk 9:52; Jn 4:4).<\/p>\n<p>** see also: D. A. Carson, <i>The Gospel According to John<\/i> (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1991), 215; and Andreas J. K\u00f6stenberger, <i>John in Baker Exegetical Commentary Series<\/i> (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004), 146.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_939\" style=\"width: 303px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.spendayearwithjesus.com\/djp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/SpendaYearwithJesus_3routes.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-939\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-939 \" src=\"http:\/\/www.spendayearwithjesus.com\/djp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/SpendaYearwithJesus_3routes-293x300.jpg\" alt=\"Three Routes to Jerusalem from Galilee\" width=\"293\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/wjes.us\/b\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/SpendaYearwithJesus_3routes-293x300.jpg 293w, https:\/\/wjes.us\/b\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/SpendaYearwithJesus_3routes.jpg 584w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 293px) 100vw, 293px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-939\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Three Routes to Jerusalem from Galilee<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Have you driven cross-country maybe for a wedding or a family reunion? After everyone gathers and the small talk begins to fade, eventually the conversation resurges as weary travelers discuss the pros-and-cons of various road routes \u2013 longer interstates and shorter two-lanes, construction, traffic density, and scenery. Three times a year, Jesus&#8217; community made the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-telling-the-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wjes.us\/b\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wjes.us\/b\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wjes.us\/b\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wjes.us\/b\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wjes.us\/b\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wjes.us\/b\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wjes.us\/b\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wjes.us\/b\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wjes.us\/b\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}