A Little Off Course

Now they were expecting that he was going to swell up or suddenly fall down dead. But after they had waited a long time and had seen nothing unusual happen to him, they changed their minds and began to say that he was a god.  Acts 28:6  NASB

Fall down dead – It’s a famous story.  Paul gets bitten by a poisonous snake and feels no effects.  All kinds of “snake charming” religious sects derive their beliefs in spiritual safety from this verse.  In fact, if you visit Malta, you will find multiple examples of Paul’s visit.  There are several churches named after him.  There are famous paintings on the walls of buildings commemorating his shipwreck.  There’s St. Paul’s Bay.  What you won’t find there are  poisonous snakes.

The species of snakes recorded in Malta could never have caused a man to “swell up, fall down and die”. So what then is the identity of the viper that bit St Paul? The best explanation is always the simplest and the one in which actual evidence occurs. In fact the most dangerous true viper species in Europe does still live on the island of Melita. It is however not modern Malta, but an island in the Adriatic Sea, today known as Meleda or Mljet.

Furthermore, until recently the island was so heavily infested with the notorious horned viper Vipera ammodytes that a predatory mongoose was introduced on the island in 1910 to control the snake population. The symptoms of a bite by this viper coincide with those reported in the Acts; immediate ‘swelling’ due to hemorrhagic edema, ‘falling down’ due to faintness/dizziness, followed by circulatory shock, pulmonary congestion and internal bleeding, all of which would lead to death if not treated properly.

The Bible states that St Paul’s ship was in the Adriatic (Acts 27:27) when the shipwreck took place but Maltese traditionalists have come up with several complicated nautical, archaeological and other arguments to discount the Adriatic Melita as St Paul’s island, in favour of Malta. Unfortunately the clear biological evidence proves otherwise.[1]

At least the NASB has a footnote to verse 28:1 providing the alternative reading “Melita.”  The Greek is Μελίτη (Melitē), certainly not Malta.  But tradition trumps text, despite the reference in 27:27 to the Ἀδρίας (Adrias), that is, the Adriatic Sea, far north of Malta.  Imagine what would happen to Malta’s religious tourist business if the world knew Paul was never there.  You don’t have to imagine what would happen to entries in lexicons like these:

Μελίτη, ης, ἡ Malta, an island located south of Sicily^[2]

93.529 Μελίτη, ης f: an island located south of Sicily—‘Malta’ ^[3]

3194 Μελίτη, Μελιτήνη [Melite /mel·ee·tay/] n pr loc. Of uncertain origin; GK 3514 and 3515; AV translates as “Melita” once. 1 the name of an island in the Mediterranean, lying between Africa and Sicily, now called Malta.^[4]

Apparently Luke and Paul weren’t off course, but quite a few modern lexicons are.

Topical Index:  Malta, Melite, snake, Paul, Acts 27:27, Acts 28:6

[1] Stephan Mifsud, https://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/Which-viper-bit-St-Paul-in-Malta-.507396

^[2] Arndt, W., Danker, F. W., Bauer, W., & Gingrich, F. W. (2000). A Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament and other early Christian literature(3rd ed., p. 627). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

^[3] Louw, J. P., & Nida, E. A. (1996). Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament: based on semantic domains (electronic ed. of the 2nd edition., Vol. 1, p. 837). New York: United Bible Societies.

^[4] Strong, J. (1995). Enhanced Strong’s Lexicon. Woodside Bible Fellowship.