8. Hike the Bible – Roman Road

A Roman road in Pompeii

The Hike the Bible series is currently covering points of interest along two hiking trails through Galilee, the 40-mile Jesus Trail and the 39-mile Gospel Trail. These two trails re-create possible routes Jesus may have walked when He left Nazareth for Capernaum near the beginning of his ministry (Luke 4:16-37).

Jesus undoubtedly traversed all or parts of these trails during His sojourns in Galilee. Click Jesus Trail vs. Gospel Trail for a comparative evaluation of the two trails.

Points of interest that I’ll discuss lie primarily along the Jesus Trail, because I think that trail is more interesting, and because it has more Biblically-relevant sites. After discussing the Galilean points of interest, this Hike the Bible series will continue with reviews of other major hiking trails in the Lands of the Bible.

Roman Road
Between Ilaniya and Lavi on both the Jesus Trail and the Gospel Trail are the ruins of an old Roman road that Jesus likely used.

This road ran from Acre on the Mediterranean to Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee. It was a major east-west thoroughfare in Jesus’ day, and He surely used it in traveling through Galilee.

Remains of Galilee's 2,000-year-old Roman Road from the Mediterranean Sea to the Sea of Galilee

At the right is a picture of Galilee’s 2,000-year-old Roman Road. The view is east toward the Sea of Galilee. Jesus undoubtedly walked on these very stones.
(Photo by Larry Haverstock; used by permission. See Larry Haverstock’s Blog for a captivating day-by-day account of his 5-day hike of the Jesus Trail in May 2011.)

If you click to enlarge the photo, you can just make out a Jesus Trail marker at the end of the visible rocky road on the right. It’s a blaze of white-orange-white stripes painted on a boulder.

Click Sephoris Street to see a picture of a Roman street excavated at Sephoris (Zippori), the 1st-century capital of Galilee (from the blog post 5. Hike the Bible – Zippori).

Roman roads were very well built. Two thousand years from now, which of today’s roads will look as good as the Pompeii road above, or the Sephoris street, or even the grass-encroached Galilean road?

Romans Road
The Roman Road or the Romans Road has another connotation. It is a “road” through the Gospel using verses from the book of Romans to walk through the Good News of salvation from sin and death through faith in Jesus Christ.

1. Romans 3:23 – For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
   Everyone is a sinner.
2. Romans 6:23 – For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
   The penalty for sin is death, but God offers eternal life instead, as a free gift through Jesus.
3. Romans 5:8 – But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
   Jesus died to pay the penalty for people’s sin.
4. Romans 10:9-10, 13 – If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. … For whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.
   Believe in Jesus and His resurrection. Verbalize your allegiance to His Lordship, and you will be saved.
5. Romans 5:1; Romans 8:1; Romans 8:38-39 –
   Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
   Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
   For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
   The result of salvation is being made right with God (justification), peace with God, and eternal life with God.

Soli Deo Gloria.

This is the eighth installment in the Hike the Bible series reviewing major hiking trails in the Lands of the Bible.
Read the prequels:
1. Hike the Bible – Jesus Trail (with video)
2. Hike the Bible – Gospel Trail (with video)
3. Hike the Bible – Jesus Trail vs. Gospel Trail
4. Hike the Bible – Nazareth
5. Hike the Bible – Zippori
6. Hike the Bible – Mash’had
7. Hike the Bible – Cana (with video)

Read the sequel:
9. Hike the Bible – Via Maris

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©William T. Pelletier, Ph.D.
“contending earnestly for the faith”
“destroying speculations against the knowledge of God”
(Jude 1:3; 2 Cor 10:4)
Wednesday March 14, 2012 A.D.

Read my March 2012 newspaper column:
Hike the Bible

Jesus was going throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness among the people. (Matthew 4:23)