Israel hopes to attract Christian tourists with a new pilgrimage route unveiled this week in the Galilee, a network of footpaths, roads and bicycle paths linking sites central to the lives of Jesus and his disciples.

Developing sites linked to Jewish history has long been a priority for the Jewish state. But the Gospel Trail, inaugurated Thursday by Israeli tourism officials, is a nod to the growing number of Christians traveling to the country in recent years, outnumbering Jewish visitors.

More than two-thirds of the 3.45 million tourists in Israel last year were Christian, double the amount of the previous year, and about 40 percent of them defined themselves as religious pilgrims, according to Israel’s Tourism Ministry.

The 40-mile (60-kilometer) trail in northern Israel passes sites including Tabgha, the traditional site of Jesus’ miracle of the loaves and fishes, and the Mount of Beatitudes, where he delivered his Sermon on the Mount. It ends at Capernaum on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, where Jesus espoused his teachings.

Giacinto-Boulos Marcuzzo, a Catholic bishop, led Bible students and reporters on an inaugural hike Thursday on the first section of the trail — a footpath setting out from a hilltop lookout point on the outskirts of Nazareth, Jesus’ hometown.

Dressed in a flowing crimson robe, the bishop read a passage from the Gospel of St. Luke that describes the Nazarenes who brought Jesus to the hilltop, known as Mount Precipice, and threatened to throw him off the cliff.

“The town of Nazareth is where everything started,” said Marcuzzo. “This reminds us to have faith.”

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