Malta · Malta in the central Mediterranean; the traditional shipwreck site is St. Paul’s Bay in the northeast of the island
Where Paul was shipwrecked en route to Rome; all 276 aboard reached land safely, and he stayed on the island for three months.
First mentioned in the Bible
After we made it to safety, we learned that the island was called Malta.— Acts 28:1
Background
Malta is an island in the central Mediterranean, about 100 km (60 mi) south of Sicily. About 59 C.E., the ship taking Paul as a prisoner to Rome was caught in a violent northeasterly wind called Eu·ro·aqʹui·lo after leaving Crete. Driven before the gale and fearful of grounding on the Syrtis shoals, the crew let the ship drift; after about fourteen days and some 870 km (540 mi), soundings showed the water growing shallower (20 and then 15 fathoms). At dawn they ran the ship toward a bay with a beach, but it struck a shoal washed by the sea on both sides: the bow stuck fast and the stern was broken by the waves. All 276 aboard—soldiers, sailors, and prisoners—reached land safely, just as Paul had foretold after an angel assured him that Jehovah God would grant him the lives of all sailing with him. The island proved to be Malta. Its foreign-speaking inhabitants showed extraordinary kindness, kindling a fire in the cold rain. When a viper fastened on Paul’s hand as he laid sticks on the fire, he shook it off unharmed; the people, expecting him to swell up, finally concluded he was a god. Publius, the principal man of the island, entertained them for three days, and Paul healed his father of fever and dysentery by prayer and laying on of hands; afterward the rest of the sick on the island were also cured. After wintering three months, the company sailed on to Rome in an Alexandrian ship. The traditional shipwreck site is St. Paul’s Bay in northeastern Malta; an older theory locating the wreck at Mljet (Meleda) in the Adriatic does not fit the voyage, the soundings, or the two-seas geography and is generally rejected.
Related Scriptures (New World Translation)
When daylight came, they could not recognize the land, but they saw a bay with a beach and were determined to beach the ship there if they could.— Acts 27:39
When they struck a shoal washed on each side by the sea, they ran the ship aground and the bow got stuck and stayed immovable, but the stern began to be violently broken to pieces by the waves.— Acts 27:41
and the rest were to follow, some on planks and some on pieces of the ship. So all were brought safely to land.— Acts 27:44