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Section A18 MARCH 2012

Hike the Bible

Nothing beats visiting Biblelands or enhancing ap-preciation and understanding oScripture. The best way to ex-perience them is as Jesus, Abra-

Two hiking trails, theJesusTrail and the Gospel Trail,re-create routes Jesus may havetraveled rom Nazareth toCapernaum near the beginning o

His Galilee travels, Jesus undoubtedlytraversed both trails.

Visitors to Israel can incorporatehiking part o a trail in their itinerary.

This gives a perspective on the landthat is dierent rom riding in tourbuses. To get a eel or the land Jesusknew, walk routes He likely ollowed.

The best hiking months are March,April, and September through No-

vember, since Israeli summers are hot,

and winter rains turn trails to muck.

JesusTrailThis 40-mile trail was established in2007 by American David Landis andIsraeli Maoz Inon. They conceivedthe Jesus Trail as a world-class hikingtrail ollowing the ootsteps o Jesus,a tool or learning about His lie andteachings. They envisioned the trailbringing people together rom di-

ligions. Jesus Trail developers aimed to

provide the best possible hiking routes

resources and services or hikers alongthe trails.

Landis and Maoz built the trailrom scratch by route-fnding be-tween points o interest, building re-lationships with villagers,and encouraging locals tooer support services orhikers. They arranged toofcially blaze the trail andpromote it in tourist publi-cations.

The Jesus Trail hasbeen GPS-mapped. Youcan rent hand-held GPSdevices with pre-loaded Je-sus Trail tracks, or you candownload ree GPS flesor your own device.

GospelTrailIn November 2011 Is-raels Ministry o Tourismopened this new 39-milehiking trail rom Nazarethto Capernaum. Develop-ment took 10 years andcost $800,000.

Christians comprisedtwo-thirds o Israels 3.45million tourists in 2010.Israel predicts the new trail

will attract 200,000 addi-

tional Christians to Gali-lee in its frst year. Touristservices will have to grow,thereby boosting Galileeseconomy.

Most o the Gos-pel Trail is accessible onhorseback and bicycles.Sections are even acces-sible by wheelchairs andstrollers.

The Gospel Trail is agentle, sanitized hiking experience orthe tour bus crowd. The trail eaturessaety barriers, rest areas, and picnicsites. Site-relevant Scriptures carvedinto rock adorn the trail.

ComparisonBoth trails lie entirely within Israelproper and do not cross into Palestin-ian territory. Thus there are no check-point crossings to contend with as onsome other Israeli trails.

The Gospel Trail is a government

project to promote tourism and eco-nomic growth. It somewhat dupli-cates the older Jesus Trail that wasprivately developed.

Why did Israel expend so muchmoney, time, and eort to developthe redundant Gospel Trail when theexisting Jesus Trail already unctioned

well?The newer Gospel Trail primarily

passes through Jewish communities, while the Jesus Trail goes throughboth Jewish and Arabic communi-ties. This change was one o the mo-tivations or Israels development othe Gospel Trail. Israels Ministryo Tourism considered many Arabtowns dirty and unsightly. Saety wasalso a concern.

The downside is that the Gospel Trail skips signifcant Christian sites

like Cana, the site o Jesus frstmiracle where He turned water into

wine. Ater the Cana wedding, Jesus went to Capernaum, another occa-sion when He surely used portions othese two trails.

The Gospel Trail also missesNazareth. It starts south o Nazarethat Mt. Precipice, the traditional site

where people tried to throw Jesus oa cli ater His synagogue messageannouncing His mission. The Gospel

Trail contains many ewer signifcantChristian sites than the Jesus Trail.

The Jesus Trail is divided into legso three to fve miles which connectat towns or road junctions accessibleby the Israeli bus system. The

trail winds through towns toencourage relationships with villagers and to support localbusinesses through overnightstays and supply purchases.Each night o the suggestedhike schedule oers the op-

tion to stay in a village inn: twonights in Arab towns (Naza-reth, Cana) and two in Jewishtowns (Ilaniya or Lavi, Arbel).

Hikers typically take threeto fve days to complete thetrails, but segments can behiked to sample the country.

For the frst 15 miles, the twotrails are completely dierent. Theyconverge at Ilaniya and then divergeagain at Lavi. The Gospel Trail by-passes the Horns o Hattin and theArbel Clis in order to provide a gen-tler hiking experience, thereby skip-ping some spectacular views that areon the Jesus Trail.

The Jesus Trail is marked in bothdirections with orange and white tri-stripe blazes painted on boulders,

with the next blaze always visible. TheGospel Trail is marked bystone cairns that are some-times over 500 yards apart.Cairns are harder and moreexpensive to maintain.

Water supply is an issueon the Gospel Trail, since it

avoids many towns. Wateraccess is o-route much othe way, so hikers have tocarry 10-20 pounds o ex-tra water with them to pre-

vent dehydration. Hikersdie rom dehydration every

year in Israel. The Gospel Trail is

harder to reach by publictransit and resupply is moredifcult because it avoidstowns. However, its easierto cover by car than the Je-sus Trail.

The Jesus Trail is more

strenuous than the GospelTrail. The Jesus Trail is rat-ed Moderate Difcultyor 24 miles o the trail.

Two segments totaling six

miles are rated Difcult with steepascents and descents. The last eightmiles o the Jesus Trail approachingthe Sea o Galilee are rated Easy.

At the end o the trails in Caper-naum, boat trips cross the Sea o Gal-ilee. Jesus walked across it (Matthew14:22-33), but nobody else has beenable to do that in 2,000 years theApostle Peter tried, but sank!

Boats go southwest rom Caper-naum to Ginosar, where marine ar-chaeologists ound and preserved afshing boat rom the time o Jesus.Another excursion sails rom Caper-naum to Tiberias, a town dating backto A.D. 20. In Jesus day, the Sea o

Galilee was sometimes called the Seao Tiberias (John 6:1).

The older Jesus Trail is the supe-rior hiking trail. It has better sup-port services or hikers, better trailmarkings or navigation, and better

has more Christian and historic sitesand provides more opportunities tointeract with locals and the diversecultures o Galilee.

For links to trail maps, guides, col-or pictures, and videos, see the Bible-

E-mail Dr. Pelletier atBibleScienceGuy@woodsidenews.org.Read the Bible-Science Guy blog athttp://BibleScienceGuy.wordpress.comand follow him at http://twitter.com/

BibleScienceGuy.

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tHE bIbLE AND sCIENCE by WilliaM T. PelleTieR, PH.d. [woodside news COLUMNIST]

PelleTieR, PH.d.

ham, and Paul did on oot.

His ministry (Luke 4:16-37). During

ferent nationalities, cultures, and re-

between Biblical sites in Galilee, with

access to water, food, and supplies. It

Science Guy blog. Soli Deo Gloria.

2012 William T. Pelletier