In part two of Peter William’s look at Paul’s journey and shipwreck, he explores whether the island really was Malta, and where Paul came ashore.
We saw in part I of this article how Paul surprisingly shipwrecked on Malta after a tumultuous voyage from Fair Havens in Crete. In part two, we consider the question of where Paul was shipwrecked.
There are two critical questions which we can raise about Paul’s voyage to Malta. Was it really the island of Malta where Paul landed? And if so, where in Malta did he land? In answer to the first question, I would say a resounding ‘yes’, but the answer to the second question is not so simple.
Did Paul go to Malta?
The Greek word for Malta in Acts 28:1 is Melitē. In the Middle Ages, there were two islands called by this name, or Melita in Latin: the main island of the modern Republic of Malta, and the island of Mljet off the coast of Croatia. Various books have been written advocating for one or the other as the landing place of the Apostle Paul. Sometimes those involved had rather vested interests in their conclusions. For instance, the Knights of St John, who were in charge of Malta from 1530 to1798, were wealthy patrons supporting research that bolstered the island’s claims to Paul’s legacy.
There are three main objections to Malta as the island, which can be answered briefly:
- It had no venomous snakes, whereas one bit Paul (Acts 28:3);
- The sailors ought to have recognised it, whereas they did not (Acts 27:39);
- The sea in which the ship was storm-tossed was called the Adria (Adriatic) in Acts 27:27, whereas the sea to the east of Malta is now called the Ionian Sea.
Though the former climate of Malta is a complex matter, there is no question that it used to be more humid in the past, making it more habitable for snakes. Much erosion has occurred, as can be seen by comparing the lack of soil on the main island of Malta with its smaller neighbour Gozo. It is true that there are no other written records of venomous snakes on the island, nor any skeletal remains, but there are many places that used to have venomous snakes which do so no longer. Given that there are almost no literary records of Malta from before the Middle Ages, a lack of written records of snakes is entirely unsurprising. The biblical text does not suggest that venomous snakes were once common in Malta. They may have been rare, which would be one reason the locals viewed one hanging from Paul’s hand as a sign of divine judgement. If they were rare, there would be no reason to expect any skeletal remains to survive.
Whether the sailors should have recognised Malta depends somewhat on the exact location of the shipwreck, and also on the number and experience of the sailors. Though we know there was one other ship taking grain from Egypt to Rome which was wintering on the island (Acts 28:11), we have no reason to believe that a significant proportion of the many Egyptian grain ships which supplied Rome journeyed via Malta. If there were under 30 crew on a ship carrying 276 people, and only a third of those had a decade or more experience at sea, it would not be surprising if none had often been to Malta before or could recognise any one of its bays in bad weather.
The final objection about the Adriatic can be answered by looking at the way ancient geographers would use the term Adriatic for a much wider area than today. The sixth-century historian Procopius specifically says that Gozo and Malta divide the Adriatic from the Tyrrhenian Sea (De Bellis 3.14.16).
Why Malta makes most sense
Malta is also the destination which makes the most sense. The first port they called at after leaving the island on a new ship was Syracuse, Sicily. This is the logical next port for anyone leaving Malta and heading for Rome, but is not so for almost any other island.
Some scholars have proposed Mljet, also known as Meleda or Melita Adriatica, as the location of Paul’s shipwreck. But this idea suffers from serious objections. It is hard to see how an east-north-east wind could drive a ship north to Mljet, let alone without it hitting land somewhere else first. And then why would the next port on the way to Rome involve a massive detour to Syracuse in Sicily?
Paul left the island on a grain ship travelling from Alexandria to Rome, which was wintering on the island. Any ship going from Alexandria to Rome which had managed to wander up to the coast of Croatia would have to be seriously lost. And it would be very puzzling for a crew to decide to winter on an island rather than in one of the large ports on the nearby mainland.
To avoid these difficulties, one scholar proposed the more southerly island of Cephalonia as a candidate for the island Paul landed on. Some of the same objections can be made. Even with another island, Syracuse is not the logical next stop. Moreover, it does not really explain why a grain ship would winter on that island rather than on the nearby Greek mainland.
So the evidence overwhelmingly suggests that the people of Malta are right to celebrate that Paul landed on their island. This is by far the oldest tradition. We have few written records of the early history of the island, though Christian symbolism can be seen in catacombs dating from the fourth century. By the sixth century, apocryphal records of the Acts of Paul used the longer, unambiguous name Gaudomeletē for where Paul landed. Gaudomeletē is a compound word made up of the words which became Gozo and Malta. That makes it clear that people understood Paul had landed on Malta before any other island was ever suggested.
The scene of the shipwreck
The more difficult question is where exactly Paul landed. The name of St Paul’s Bay, on the northern coast of the island, reflects the tradition that he landed there. There are, in fact, a number of traditions placing things associated with Paul in this general area. Yet there are no traditions placing him in the south-east of the island, around the capital Valetta, or on the neighbouring island of Gozo. The traditional location of Paul’s landing goes back to at least AD 1400. But does it go back any further?
Here we reach a difficulty. In AD 870 the island, which was increasingly showing Christian culture, was conquered by Muslims. Most Byzantine Christians fled, and Malta underwent significant depopulation. From that time on, until AD 1091 when Roger I of Sicily invaded Malta, there is no clear evidence of Christians on the island. If Malta had no Christians for over two centuries, who would keep alive the traditions of exactly where Paul landed? It’s possible that there were a few Christians to hand on the thread of tradition about St Paul’s Bay, but without further evidence it is hard to be certain. Some Roman anchors have been found round Malta, but despite claims otherwise, there is no indisputable evidence that any of these are from Paul’s ship.
Uncertainty about the exact location of the shipwreck remains, but this should not affect our confidence that Paul, Luke, and Aristarchus visited the island, as recorded in the Book of Acts.
Amazingly Luke records that Publius, the leader of the island had the title of ‘first of the island’. That same title turns up in texts from Malta. So not only can be confident that Paul landed on the island, but we can see that Luke shows direct knowledge of its society.
Luke’s narrative in the Book of Acts is a gripping and historically accurate account of the journey to Malta and shipwreck. It strengthens our confidence in the story, and highlights God’s providential care for Paul and his friends as they headed towards the very heart of the Roman Empire where Paul would bear witness to the Lord Jesus Christ.
April 16, 2026
