The New Testament doesn't say that the snake bit St. Paul, only that it fastened itself to his arm--it isn't said that fangs were used. Perhaps they were and that's why the barbarians thought he was about to drop dead.
The island is identified as Melite (Acts 28.1). There were two islands with that name--Malta and the island now called Mljet, near Dubrovnik off the Dalmatian coast. The last geographical pointer was in 27.27 where the Adriatic is mentioned. Mljet is in the Adriatic; the sea around Malta is not generally considered part of the Adriatic Sea. Constantine Porphyrogenitus thought the shipwreck was on Mljet.
There are poisonous snakes on Mljet; I don't think there are any on Malta. I was told by a high school classmate who was born on Malta that St. Paul drove the snakes out--sort of like St. Patrick driving the snakes out of Ireland.
Pope Benedict XVI officially endorsed Malta as the place of the shipwreck, but he didn't announce that it was an infallible statement.
It could be that this guy is looking around the wrong island.
Sounds like he should have listened to your insights. Thx for the comments, I haven’t looked at the passage in a while.
You point out the term Adriatic sea is mentioned in Acts 27:27 which is correct and today Malta is not included in that area. However, during the first century the term the Adriatic sea encompassed a much larger area than it does today. That area did include the modern island of Malta.
There are some better clues in the text, Acts 27:7 (NIV) “We made slow headway for many days and had difficulty arriving off Cnidus. When the wind did not allow us to hold our course, we sailed to the lee of Crete, opposite Salmone.” They were forced to turn away from the course that would have carried them to Mljet. This change in course eventually placed them at anchor at Fairhaven Crete, again because they could not sail north.
Another clue comes when they weighed anchor to go from Fairhaven to Phoenix. In Acts 27:14 (NIV), a wind of hurricane force, called the “northeaster,” swept down from the island. (Other versions state the wind came from the ENE). The ship was caught by the storm and could not head into the wind; so we gave way to it and were driven along.
The next course clue is provided in Acts 27:16 As we passed to the lee of a small island called Cauda, we were hardly able to make the lifeboat secure. Cauda is west of Crete.
The next clue comes in the following verse Acts 27:17 (NIV) Fearing that they would run aground on the sandbars of Syrtis. These sandbars are located west of this position.
Using these clues, we have a line that runs from their starting point (Crete) past Cauda directly heading for their biggest fear the sandbars of Syrtis. They had little control and no sails and were being driven in a westerly direction. This course could not north to Mljet.
You are also correct, there are no poisonous snakes on Malta, TODAY. There are many other island countries in the world where snakes have become extinct.