2. Placing the Episode at Malta: A Preliminary Examination of Acts 28:1–10 within its Literary Context

Abstract

This chapter provides a first reading of Malta episode staying at level of literary analysis and recognition of motifs. Acts 28:1-10 is situated strategically between Paul's sea-voyage (27:1-44) and his arrival in Rome (28:16-31) which reader has been anticipating at least since Acts 19:21. With Homer's Odyssey as archetype and Vergil's Aeneid following in suit, accounts of sea-voyages were a favorite topos of Greek, Hellenistic, and Roman authors. Despite influence of Hellenism in first-century Judaism, one can nevertheless justifiably claim that ancient Israelite and Jewish culture had no great love for sea-voyages. Loveday Alexander has shown that in Greek literature contemporary with Acts, particularly in Greek novels, Mediterranean Sea was often viewed simply as the Greek Sea. It was cultural territory, therefore, of Greeks, place where Greeks felt at home and asserted their power.Keywords: Alexander; Greeks; Homer's Odyssey; Israelite culture; Jewish culture; Malta episode; Mediterranean Sea; sea-voyages; Vergil's Aeneid