What was emmaus

Scholars believe the fact that Jesus chose to reveal Himself at the dinner table also says a great deal. First, there is something relaxing about the fellowship of the table. There, people are calm, unhurried, there to fill their bellies and rest after a hard day.

Perhaps this is a metaphor for the church and the sort of evangelism Jesus knew would spread best — rooted in relationships, person to person. Perhaps this represents the way Jesus wants people to know Him: on a basic, core, everyday level, practical and authentic, not fancy or fussy or only for a certain class or rank.

The men are not named at all until midway through the story, and then only one of them is identified: Cleopas. And, at this point, the only other people to have had a supernatural encounter were women, who found the tomb empty save for two angels.

At that time in history, women were low in status. That these seemingly unimportant women received a revelation, followed by these two seemingly unimportant men, perhaps signifies the universality of the resurrection message.

Jesus was born to a humble woman in humble circumstances. His life was spent in suffering, wandering, and hated as he traveled from place to place, until He was finally arrested, beaten, tortured, nailed to a cross, and left to die a terrible, gruesome death.

The experience of the two men and their encounter with Jesus upon the road to Emmaus is powerful. What Are the Marks of a True Believer? What Are the Prophecies about Jesus? Jessica Brodie is an award-winning Christian novelist, journalist, editor, blogger, and writing coach and the recipient of the American Christian Fiction Writers Genesis Award for her novel, The Memory Garden.

Learn more about her fiction and read her faith blog at jessicabrodie. The hill on the outskirts of Abu Ghosh. In Luke Emmaus is described as being about 7 miles from Jerusalem.

Emmaus is also described in ancient histories as being a fortified town west of Jerusalem. The Kiriath-Jearim site is west of Jerusalem. Kiriath-Jearim is also mentioned in the Bible as one of the places where the Ark of the Covenant stood.

When they reach their destination, the disciples were so enthralled with this stranger's teaching that they invited him to stay with them. As Jesus sat with the disciples at the dinner table, He took the bread, said the blessing and then broke the bread and handed the pieces to His disciples. In the breaking of the bread, their eyes were opened and they recognized the risen Savior. Jesus then disappeared from their sight. Jesus encounter with His Emmaus disciples was the first Lord's Day liturgical service.

The liturgy began with the breaking open of the Word and ended with the revelation of the glorified Christ in the breaking of the Eucharistic bread. Filled with joy over what they had witnessed, the two disciples immediately returned to Jerusalem to tell the Apostles they had seen the resurrected Jesus Christ. In St. Luke's account, only one of the disciples is named and that is Cleopas Luke , but according to Christian tradition the other disciple is believed to have been Cleopas' son, Simeon, who became the second Christian bishop of Jerusalem after the death of James, kinsman of Jesus, the first bishop of Jerusalem Church History, Eusebius, 3.

This encounter with Christ is mentioned in Mark , but only St. Luke records this story with many details Luke , and the Gospel of Luke is the only New Testament book which mentions the town of Emmaus. The encounter between the resurrected Jesus and two of His disciples on the road to Emmaus is one of twelve post-Resurrection appearances of Jesus recorded in the New Testament; eight of these encounters are recorded in the Gospels:. The location of the biblical town of Emmaus has been a source of controversy.

There are nine candidates for the site of this encounter between Jesus and His two Emmaus disciples. However, only four sites can be considered serious candidates.

The other clue to the location of Emmaus is found in the biblical text that records the distance of Emmaus from Jerusalem. Most translations of Scripture record the distance as sixty stadia, or a little more than seven miles. Emmaus Qubeibeh is northwest of Jerusalem, and within the seven mile radius. The ruin of an old Roman fort is located near the site which was named Castellum-Emmaus by the Crusaders who set up their own fort on the site.

The Crusaders identified el-Qubeibeh as Emmaus circa Abu Ghosh is just outside of Jerusalem. It does have a natural spring which may have led some Crusaders to identify it as Emmaus.

The Crusaders built a castle and a church there in The next candidate is Motza. The ancient name during the Crusader period was Colonia, hence the Arabic name Qaloniyeh. Ammaous does sound similar to Emmaus, but the problem with these three sites is that none of them are linked to the biblical Emmaus until the Crusader period when Christians were trying to identify all of the holy sites mentioned in Scripture.

It should also be considered that in the Crusader period with travel to the Holy Land for pilgrims being relatively safe, identifying a town with a biblical site, then as now, meant the influx of wealth from the pilgrim trade. The last contender is Emmaus-Nicopolis. This town is located near Latrum, a town on what was the well-traveled Roman road from the coast up to Jerusalem.