Traveling with Paul, Mary and the Apostles in the 1st Century was TOUGH!

Jostling through the crowds Paul and Luke pushed their way to the ramp. The wooden cargo ship was ready to leave Caesarea and they had gathered the last of their supplies. They pressed the silver denarii into the hands of the sailer at the dock. They were allowed onto the ship.

They rushed to the far side of the salty deck to claim their few square feet of living space where they would live, sleep and eat for the next seven days. The set up a leather tent covering, put their blankets under the tarp and stashed their food and meager supplies in the corner. They were ready to go!

Traveling by ship in the first century was rugged and grueling. Ships did not have cabins for travelers. They purchased space on the deck — the lower part of the ship was for the huge cargos, usually grain from Egypt, marble from Greece or lumber from Lebanon.

However, this was certainly the quickest way to get through the Roman Empire by voyaging the shipping lanes of the Mediterranean Sea. Even though Rome had built over 250,000 miles of primary roads the time and labor to walk around the sea was rugged, dangerous and timely.

How do you think Mary traveled from Israel (Judea) to Ephesus with St. John? It would have been almost impossible to travel by land so she must have suffered much on the deck of one of these cargo ships. Mary was tough!

Ships were not reliable like the luxurious cruise ships today where pilgrims sip a glass of wine on the deck looking out over the waves only imagining the grueling voyage of St. Paul and the other early Christians. To get a sense of this rugged reality we suggest our pilgrims go out on the deck of our cruise ship in the middle of a windy wavy night. Imagining living on the deck of the ship, covered with the salty spray and using the side of the ship for a toilet is not the way modern people would want to travel.

Even though we can only use our imagination to “experience” the travels of St. Paul as he spread the Gospel around the Mediterranean, our pilgrims traveling with us through the Great Sea of biblical times still get to walk in Paul’s footprints through the cities he walked. We even walk on the actual roads with the stones laid over 2,000 year ago.