Q. Where did Jesus live in Egypt? Did they travel there on foot and how long did it take them to travel to Egypt?
A Dec. 13, 2016 comment on my post “How long did Jesus live in Egypt?” reports a visit to a home in Cairo that was supposedly the one in which the baby Jesus lived with his parents. This is, of course, possible. But I believe that Joseph, Mary, and Jesus would most likely have traveled to Alexandria for safety. There was a large Jewish colony in that city, and I even suspect that they had extended family or friends-of-friends who helped them settle there. But this is all speculative. The Bible simply reports that they went to Egypt, and we must rely on varying traditions for any further information.
The distance from Jerusalem to Alexandria is a little over 300 miles. In the time of Jesus, a “day’s journey” was considered to be about 20 miles. Assuming the family left from somewhere in Judea, it would have taken a little over two weeks for them to reach Alexandria (particularly considering that they were traveling with a young child).
Abu Serga (Saints Sergius and Bacchus Church) in Cairo, traditionally believed to have been built on the spot where Joseph, Mary, and Jesus rested at the end of their journey to Egypt.
The Rev. Dr. Christopher R. Smith is an an ordained minister, a writer, and a biblical scholar. He was active in parish and student ministry for twenty-five years. He was a consulting editor to the International Bible Society (now Biblica) for The Books of the Bible, an edition of the New International Version (NIV) that presents the biblical books according to their natural literary outlines, without chapters and verses. His Understanding the Books of the Bible study guide series is keyed to this format. He was also a consultant to Tyndale House for the Immerse Bible, an edition of the New Living Translation (NLT) that similarly presents the Scriptures in their natural literary forms, without chapters and verses or section headings.
He has a B.A. from Harvard in English and American Literature and Language, a Master of Arts in Theological Studies from Gordon-Conwell, and a Ph.D. in the History of Christian Life and Thought, with a minor concentration in Bible, from Boston College, in the joint program with Andover Newton Theological School.
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