Christmas Journey 01 Nazareth to Bet She'an one route

Luke and Matthew both tell us that Mary and Joseph received news of the coming Christ child in Nazareth and that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. How the couple got from one village to the other is one of the most interesting visual stories that can be told in the New Testament. Israel is very small, and very thin. Only two routes would have been under consideration. The shorter route (90 miles/145 km) would have taken them through the mountains of Samaria and Judea. It’s an unlikely path. Jews did not normally travel through Samaria and it’s likely Mary and Joseph had never traveled by that route. Even today Jewish families bypass Palestinian communities in the “West Bank.” The more familiar and safer route would have been by way of the Jordan River Valley and Jericho. Hikers today would need to travel only 10 more miles (16 km) to reach Bethlehem via that route, though it’s uncertain exactly which path Mary and Joseph would have taken. Assuming they took the path where they would have found other Jewish travelers and familiar landmarks, they would have gone east through the Jezreel Valley until they reached Bet She’an, a city of the Decapolis.