roads

133:0.2Gonod and Ga­nid had pur­chased so many things in Alexan­dria and Rome that they sent all their be­long­ings on ahead by pack train to Tar­en­tum, while the three trav­el­ers walked leisurely across Italy over the great Ap­pian Way. On this jour­ney they en­coun­tered all sorts of hu­man be­ings. Many no­ble Ro­man cit­i­zens and Greek colonists lived along this road, but al­ready the progeny of great num­bers of in­fe­rior slaves were be­gin­ning to make their ap­pear­ance.

134:8.1Af­ter spend­ing some time in the vicin­ity of Cae­sarea-Phi­lippi, Je­sus made ready his sup­plies, and se­cur­ing a beast of bur­den and a lad named Tiglath, he pro­ceeded along the Da­mas­cus road to a vil­lage some­time known as Beit Jenn in the foothills of Mount Her­mon. Here, near the mid­dle of Au­gust, A.D. 25, he es­tab­lished his head­quar­ters, and leav­ing his sup­plies in the cus­tody of Tiglath, he as­cended the lonely slopes of the moun­tain. Tiglath ac­com­pa­nied Je­sus this first day up the moun­tain to a des­ig­nated point about 6,000 feet above sea level, where they built a stone con­tainer in which Tiglath was to de­posit food twice a week.

155:2.1On Mon­day morn­ing, May 23, Je­sus di­rected Pe­ter to go over to Cho­ra­zin with the twelve evan­ge­lists while he, with the eleven, de­parted for Cae­sarea-Phi­lippi, go­ing by way of the Jor­dan to the Da­mas­cus-Ca­per­naum road, thence north­east to the junc­tion with the road to Cae­sarea-Phi­lippi, and then on into that city, where they tar­ried and taught for two weeks. They ar­rived dur­ing the af­ter­noon of Tues­day, May 24.

158:7.1Early this Wednes­day morn­ing Je­sus and the twelve de­parted from Cae­sarea-Phi­lippi for Ma­g­a­dan Park near Beth­saida-Ju­lias. The apos­tles had slept very lit­tle that night, so they were up early and ready to go. Even the stolid Al­pheus twins had been shocked by this talk about the death of Je­sus. As they jour­neyed south, just be­yond the Wa­ters of Merom they came to the Da­mas­cus road, and de­sir­ing to avoid the scribes and oth­ers whom Je­sus knew would pres­ently be com­ing along af­ter them, he di­rected that they go on to Ca­per­naum by the Da­mas­cus road which passes through Gal­i­lee. And he did this be­cause he knew that those who fol­lowed af­ter him would go on down over the east Jor­dan road since they reck­oned that Je­sus and the apos­tles would fear to pass through the ter­ri­tory of Herod An­tipas. Je­sus sought to elude his crit­ics and the crowd which fol­lowed him that he might be alone with his apos­tles this day.

196:2.1Some day a ref­or­ma­tion in the Chris­tian church may strike deep enough to get back to the unadul­ter­ated re­li­gious teach­ings of Je­sus, the au­thor and fin­isher of our faith. You may preach a re­li­gion about Je­sus, but, per­force, you must live the re­li­gion of Je­sus. In the en­thu­si­asm of Pen­te­cost, Pe­ter un­in­ten­tion­ally in­au­gu­rated a new re­li­gion, the re­li­gion of the risen and glo­ri­fied Christ. The Apos­tle Paul later on trans­formed this new gospel into Chris­tian­ity, a re­li­gion em­body­ing his own the­o­logic views and por­tray­ing his own per­sonal ex­pe­ri­ence with the Je­sus of the Da­mas­cus road. The gospel of the king­dom is founded on the per­sonal re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence of the Je­sus of Gal­i­lee; Chris­tian­ity is founded al­most ex­clu­sively on the per­sonal re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence of the Apos­tle Paul. Al­most the whole of the New Tes­ta­ment is de­voted, not to the por­trayal of the sig­nif­i­cant and in­spir­ing re­li­gious life of Je­sus, but to a dis­cus­sion of Paul’s re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence and to a por­trayal of his per­sonal re­li­gious con­vic­tions. The only no­table ex­cep­tions to this state­ment, aside from cer­tain parts of Mat­thew, Mark, and Luke, are the Book of He­brews and the Epis­tle of James. Even Pe­ter, in his writ­ing, only once re­verted to the per­sonal re­li­gious life of his Mas­ter. The New Tes­ta­ment is a su­perb Chris­tian doc­u­ment, but it is only mea­gerly Je­su­so­nian.

121:1.7When Je­sus was born, the en­tire Med­i­ter­ra­nean world was a uni­fied em­pire. Good roads, for the first time in the world’s his­tory, in­ter­con­nected many ma­jor cen­ters. The seas were cleared of pi­rates, and a great era of trade and travel was rapidly ad­vanc­ing. Eu­rope did not again en­joy an­other such pe­riod of travel and trade un­til the nine­teenth cen­tury af­ter Christ.

171:6.4They lodged with Zac­cheus for the night. On the mor­row they arose and made their way up the “road of rob­bers” to Beth­any on their way to the Pass­over at Je­ru­sa­lem.

185:5.3As the crowd surged up on the steps of the build­ing, Pi­late heard them call­ing out the name of one Barab­bas. Barab­bas was a noted po­lit­i­cal ag­i­ta­tor and mur­der­ous rob­ber, the son of a priest, who had re­cently been ap­pre­hended in the act of rob­bery and mur­der on the Jeri­cho road. This man was un­der sen­tence to die as soon as the Pass­over fes­tiv­i­ties were over.

71:1.207. Def­i­nite ter­ri­tory with roads.