Re: More Big Days

On 2025-02-12 11:45:01 +0000, Adam Funk said:

On 2025-02-09, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
 

On 2025-02-09 09:04:18 +0000, Ross Clark said:
 

10 February - Feast of St Paul's Shipwreck (Malta)
 Why? Because it's Malta's only appearance in the Bible (Acts 28:1ff.).
And he's the patron saint of Malta. The text says "Melita", but
scholars don't seem to have a problem with the identification. The
Maltese of the time (?59 AD) were Roman citizens, and treated Paul
(also a Roman citizen) well. They are described as _barbaroi_, meaning
they didn't speak Greek. (Fr McKenzie thinks probably Punic.)
Paul was on his way to Rome to appeal to Caesar against charges of
making trouble.
Why 10 February? Don't have any information on that.

 I've been labouring under a delusion for 60 years, as I thought that
happened at Matala in Crete, not Malta.

 I went to a conference in Malta years ago & there was quite a bit of
stuff referring to St Paul's shipwreck, including a bay named after
him (in both English & Maltese).
 BTW, Maltese is interesting --- it's an Arabic language with a lot of
Italian vocabulary, somewhat similar to the way English is a Germanic
language with a lot of French vocabulary.

I have a Maltese colleague in England. She is in a department where there are significant numbers of Tunisian and Libyan students. She said once that when the students talk among themselves she cannot follow their conversations in any detail, but she can tell what they are about.
--
Athel -- French and British, living in Marseilles for 37 years; mainly in England until 1987.