{"id":32246,"date":"2026-06-22T14:17:52","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T18:17:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?p=32246"},"modified":"2026-06-22T14:17:52","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T18:17:52","slug":"israel-announces-biblical-highway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2026\/06\/israel-announces-biblical-highway","title":{"rendered":"Israel Announces ‘Biblical Highway’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Israeli government has designated the country\u2019s Route 60 as the \u201cBiblical Highway.\u201d The route stretches from Nazareth in the north to Beersheba. Both sites are significant to Biblical history, as Nazareth was Jesus\u2019s boyhood home and Beersheba is notable for numerous Biblical moments, including Jewish patriarch Abraham signing a treaty with Abimelech, the Philistine king, and marks the southernmost boundary of Israel.<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made the announcement of the new designation after inaugurating a new neighborhood in Kibbutz Migdal Oz. \u201cThis is not merely a road paved with asphalt, it is a road paved with memory, with faith, with promise. Between the spirit of the Bible and the heroic spirit of our generation, the Victory Generation, we reaffirm: The people of Israel have returned home and we will remain here forever, because this is our land,\u201d he said<\/a>. US Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, praised the initiative. \u201cWhat you\u2019re doing with the heritage of Israel is not just something for Israelis and the Jewish people to appreciate,\u201d Huckabee said. \u201cIt is something for the entire world to take recognition of,\u201d he said. \u201cEverywhere you dig in this land, you unearth yet another biblical treasure, another biblical fact, another biblical reality. Here\u2019s what it tells us: This was your land for the past 3,800 years. God is the one who gave you the title deed. No government said that. God did,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Both men appeared to be referring to the continued tension of Israel\u2019s right to the land amidst continued conflict with Hamas and Iran. Speaking to Fox News Digital<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>David Parsons, senior vice president and spokesman for the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, spoke on how the historic sites in Israel pointed to the area\u2019s long-held Jewish history. \u201cYou would better understand who the Jewish people are, the special relationship God established with them for the benefit of all mankind, and the fact that this includes a land where they could become a nation and deliver those benefits down through history,\u201d he said. \u201cThe more you examine the archaeological record in the Land of Israel, and the more objectively you look at the evidence, the more you realize that the Bible is not a collection of fables and fairy tales, but an accurate account of a people and a land that have given the world ideas and values of universal benefit and inspiration,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Yishai Fleisher, international spokesman for the Jewish community of Hebron stated the establishment of the Biblical Road \u201chas educational, heritage and tourism value.\u201d \u201cThe government views the Bible as an important part of Israel\u2019s identity,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been teaching it, we\u2019ve been promoting it, and they\u2019ve embraced the idea. Ahead of the elections, I think they want to show people that they are committed to branding Israel as the land of the Bible.\u201d Connecting Israel to the Bible helped to ward off attempts to establish Israel as a Palestinian state. \u201cThe Biblical Highway will enable millions of visitors to bring their faith<\/a>, heritage, and identity to life by traveling through the very places where the Biblical story unfolded and where the values that continue to shape Western civilization were born,\u201d said Ze\u2019ev Orenstein, Director of International Affairs at City of David. \u201cIt is an invitation to experience the Bible not only as a book, but as a living geography, as relevant today as it was millennia ago.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Israeli government has designated the country\u2019s Route 60 as the \u201cBiblical Highway.\u201d The route stretches from Nazareth in the north to Beersheba. Both sites are significant to Biblical history, as Nazareth was Jesus\u2019s boyhood home and Beersheba is notable for numerous Biblical moments, including Jewish patriarch Abraham signing a treaty with Abimelech, the Philistine…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":516,"featured_media":32249,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nIsrael Announces 'Biblical Highway'<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Israel designates Route 60 as the \u201cBiblical Highway,\u201d linking key Bible sites and highlighting the land\u2019s biblical history.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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