The position of Nazareth is familiar to all. The village lies on the most southern of the ranges of Lower Galilee, and on the edges of this just above the Plain of Esdraelon. . . . Across Esdraelon, opposite to Nazareth, there emerged from the Samarian hills the road from Jerusalem, thronged annually with pilgrims, and the road from Egypt with its merchants going up and down. . . . The Roman ranks, the Roman eagles, the wealth of noblemen's litters and equipages cannot have been strange to the eyes of the boys of Nazareth, especially after their twelfth year, when they went up to Jerusalem. . . . Here then, he [Jesus] grew up and suffered temptation, who was tempted in all points "like as we are, yet without sin." The perfection of his purity and patience was achieved not easily as behind a wide fence which shut the world out, but amid rumor and scandal with every provocation to unlawful curiosity and premature ambition. The pressure and problems of the world outside God's people must have been felt by the youth of Nazareth as by few others. . . . The chief lesson which Nazareth teaches to us is the possibility of a pure home and a spotless youth in the very face of the evil world.
—From "Historical Geography of the Holy Land",
