How far Peter ran to the tomb of Jesus

I’ve been fascinated by the details surrounding the death and resurrection of Jesus as it relates to Peter, particularly after Jesus was arrested, all the way up to the empty tomb. The rooster story happens (where Jesus predicted Peter would deny him 3 times, then a rooster would crow), and Peter weeps about it. Jesus is led to the place where he hung on the cross, he dies and is buried in a tomb. A few days later when some women go to visit this tomb, they discover it’s empty. Upon hearing this news soon after, Peter takes off to the tomb (but always remember, Mary and Mary did it first). The story as it’s told in Luke says Peter ran to the tomb. I may have another entire post on how he was beat by another disciple, who made a point of saying he outran Peter. 🙂

How far did Peter run, though? Well, I thought it would be easy to find out so I just Googled “How far did Peter run to Jesus’s tomb”… nada, zilch, zippo. I couldn’t find any info. Long story short, I figured I could possibly make a guess based on where Jesus’s tomb is believed to have existed, and where Peter first heard the wild claims that Jesus’s body wasn’t there.

Jesus was buried in a tomb carved out of rock. Most people believe it’s where the Church of the Holy Sepulchre exists today. Easy enough to get an address or location for that. But it would be more difficult to find out where Peter was that early morning when the news broke. None of the four gospels give any sort of landmark or description of wherever they were that morning, so I first looked up where Peter lived. It was in Capernaum. Ok, we have 2 points to measure! Only problem is Capernaum is 123 miles away from the ancient tomb of Jesus. Certainly Peter didn’t run that far!

Further research brought me to the place where the Last Supper happened. From what I read, it seems that this room was used by believers even after the Last Supper, crucifixion, and resurrection. This location is now called Cenacle, which is defined as the room where Jesus and his disciples had the Last Supper.

So from my little bit of research, I’m going with this…

Peter ran from the Last Supper room to the tomb, about .75 miles (about 1.2 km).

I’ve even made a habit of running this same distance, I call it “Jesus, The Risen 1k” every Easter. Join me won’t you, as a way to remember the radical news that Jesus is no longer in the tomb!

Take a look at the attached maps for these locations, and as always thanks for stopping by! For another interesting read based on some research I did, check out “A Bible verse exposing the glass half empty personality”.

-Out of the Wilderness