Atlas  Adriatic Sea and surrounding area Maps Created using Biblemapper 3.0 Additional data from OpenBible.info Occurrences Acts 27:20 When neither sun nor stars shone on us for many days, and no small storm pressed on us, all hope that we would be saved was now taken away.Acts 27:21 When they had been long without food, Paul stood up in the middle of them, and said, "Sirs, you should have listened to me, and not have set sail from Crete, and have gotten this injury and loss. Acts 27:27 But when the fourteenth night had come, as we were driven back and forth in the Adriatic Sea, about midnight the sailors surmised that they were drawing near to some land. Encyclopedia ADRIAa'-dri-a (Westcott-Hort: ho Hadrias or ho Adrias): In Greek Adrias (Polybios i0.2.4), Adriatike Thalassa (Strabo iv.204), and Adriatikon Pelagos (Ptolemy iii0.15.2), and in Latin Adriaticum mare (Livy xl0.57.7), Adrianum mare (Cicero in Pisonem 38), Adriaticus sinus (Livy x0.2.4), and Mare superurn (Cicero ad Att. 90.5.1). The Adriatic Sea is a name derived from the old Etruscan city Atria, situated near the mouth of the Po (Livy v0.330.7; Strabo v.214). At first the name Adria was only applied to the most northern part of the sea. But after the development of the Syracusan colonies on the Italian and Illyrian coasts the application of the term was gradually extended southward, so as to reach Mons Garganus (the Abruzzi), and later the Strait of Hydruntum (Ptolemy iii0.10.1; Polybios vii0.19.2). But finally the name embraced the Ionian Sea as well, and we find it employed to denote the Gulf of Tarentum (Servius Aen xi.540), the Sicilian Sea (Pausanias v. 25), and even the waters between Crete and Malta (Orosius i0.2.90). Procopius considers Malta as lying at the western extremity of the Adriatic Sea (i.14). After leaving Crete the vessel in which the apostle Paul was sailing under military escort was "driven to and fro in the sea of Adria" fourteen days (Acts 27:27) before it approached the shore of Malta. We may compare this with the shipwreck of Josephus in "the middle of the Adria" where he was picked up by a ship sailing from Cyrene to Puteoli (Josephus, Vita, 3). A'DRIA, a part of the Mediterranean, surrounded by Sicily, Greece and Malta. The name was so used in St. Paul's time for that part of the sea, in distinction from the Adriatic Gulf. Strong's Greek G99: Adriasthe Adriatic, the name of a sea |
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