1. In the Gospels:
It is the fishing-boats of the Sea of Galilee which exclusively occupy attention in the Gospels. In the time of our Lord's ministry in Galilee the shores of the Sea were densely peopled, and there must have been many boats engaged in the fishing industry. Bethsaida at the northern end of the Lake and Tarichea at the southern end were great centers of the trade. The boats were probably of a size and build similar to the few employed on the Lake today, which are between 20 and 30 ft. in length and 7 ft. in breadth. The word "launch," of putting a boat or a ship into the sea, has disappeared from the Revised Version (British and American), except in Lu 8:22, where it is more appropriate to an inland lake. They were propelled by oars, but no doubt also made use of the sail when the wind was favorable (Lu 8:23), though the pictures which we have in the Gospels are mostly of the boatmen toiling in rowing in the teeth of a gale (Mr 6:48), and struggling with the threatening waves (Mt 14:24). In the boat on which Jesus and the disciples were crossing the Lake after the feeding of the 5,000, Jesus was in the stern "asleep on the cushion" (Mr 4:38, the King James Version "a pillow"; Greek proskephalaion, "headrest"). More than once Jesus made special use of a boat. As He was by the seashore a great concourse of people from all parts made it desirable that "a small boat" (ploiarion) should be in attendance off the shore to receive Him in case of need, though He does not seem to have required it (Mr 3:9). On another occasion, when the crowds were still greater, He went into a boat and sat "in the sea" with the multitude on the sloping beach before Him (Mr 4:1; Lu 5:3). This boat is said in Luke's narrative to have been Simon's, and it seems from references to it as "the boat" on other occasions to have been generally at the disposal of Jesus.
2. In the Acts of the Apostles:
It is Paul's voyages which yield us the knowledge that we possess from Biblical sources of ships in New Testament times. They are recorded for us in the Acts by Luke, who, as Sir William Ramsay puts it, had the true Greek feeling for the sea (St. Paul the Traveler, 21). In Luke's writings there are many nautical terms, peculiar to him, used with great exactitude and precision.
When Paul had appealed to Caesar and was proceeding to Rome in charge of Julius, the centurion, along with other prisoners, a ship of Adramyttium, a coasting vessel, carried the party from Caesarea along the Syrian coast, northward of Cyprus, past Cilicia and Pamphylia, to Myra of Lycia. There the centurion found a ship of Alexandria sailing for Italy, one of the great corn fleet carrying grain from Egypt for the multitudes of Rome. (After the capture of Jerusalem the emperor Titus returned to Italy in such a vessel, touching at Rhegium and landing at Puteoil.) The size of the vessel is indicated by the fact that there were 276 persons on board, crew and passengers all told (Ac 27:37). Luke has made no note of the name of this or of the previous vessels in which Paul had voyaged. Of the presumably larger vessel, also an Alexandrian corn ship bound for Rome, which had wintered in Melita, and which afterward took on board the shipwrecked party (Ac 28:11), "the sign" (parasemon) is given, and she is called "The Twin Brothers." The expression shows that it was in painting or relief; a figurehead, with the Twin Brothers represented, would be given by episemon. The cargo (phortion, Ac 27:10, the King James Version and the Revised Version (British and American) "lading") in this case was wheat (Ac 27:38), but another word is used, gomos, by Luke of a ship's load of varied wares (Ac 21:3; compare Re 18:11 ff).
Of those engaged in handling the ship we find (Ac 27:11) the master (kubernetes), the owner (naukleros, although this expression seems not quite consistent with the ownership of a grain ship of the imperial service, and Ramsay's distinction between the words, making the former "sailing-master" and the latter "captain," may be better), the sailors (Ac 27:30, who treacherously sought to lower the ship's boat on the pretense of laying out anchors from the "foreship" or prow, and to get away from the doomed vessel).
Of operations belonging to the navigation of the vessel in the storm there were (1) the taking on board of the ship's boat and securing it with ropes (Ac 27:16, in which operation Luke seems to have taken part; compare Ac 27:32), (2) the undergirding of the ship (Ac 27:17, using helps, that is taking measures of relief and adopting the expedient, only resorted to in extremities, of passing cables under the keel of the ship to keep the hull together and to preserve the timbers from starting), (3) the lowering of the gear (Ac 27:17, reducing sail, taking down the mainsail and the main yard), (4) throwing freight overboard and later casting out the tackling of the ship (Ac 27:19), (5) taking soundings (Ac 27:28), (6) letting go four anchors from the stern (Ac 27:29, stern-anchoring being very unusual, but a necessity in the circumstances), (7) further lightening the ship by throwing the wheat into the sea (Ac 27:38), (8) cutting the anchor cables, unlashing the rudders, hoisting up the foresail to the wind, and holding straight for the beach (Ac 27:40).
Of the parts of the ship's equipment there are mentioned "the sounding lead" (bolis, though it is the verb which is here used), "the anchors" (agkurai, of which every ship carried several, and which at successive periods have been made of stone, iron, lead and perhaps other metals, each having two flukes and being held by a cable or a chain), "the rudders" (pedalia, of which every ship had two for steering, which in this case had been lifted out of the water and secured by "bands" to the side of the ship and unlashed when the critical moment came), "the foresail" artemon, not the mainsail, but the small sail at the bow of the vessel which at the right moment was hoisted to the wind to run her ashore), and "the boat" (skaphe, which had been in tow in the wake of the vessel, according to custom still prevalent in those seas--coasting-vessels being sometimes becalmed, when the crew get into the small boat and take the ship in tow, using the oars to get her round a promontory or into a position more favorable for the wind). The season for navigation in those seas in ancient times was from April to October. During the winter the vessels were laid up, or remained in the shelter of some suitable haven. The reason for this was not simply the tempestuous character of the weather, but the obscuration of the heavens which prevented observations being taken for the steering of the ship (Ac 27:20).
3. In Other Books:
In 2 Cor 11:25 Paul mentions among sufferings he had endured for Christ's sake that thrice he had suffered shipwreck, and that he had been "a night and a day in the deep," implying that he had been in danger of his life clinging to a spar, or borne upon a hurriedly constructed raft. It may be a reminiscence of the sea when Paul in the very earliest of his Epistles (1Th 4:16), speaking of the coming of the Lord, says "The Lord himself shall descend from heaven, with a shout" en keleusmati), where the picture is that of the keleustes, giving the time to the rowers on board a ship. Although huperetes, was "an underrower" and huperesia, "the crew of a ship" as contrasted with kubernetes, "the sailing-master," the derived meaning of "servant" or "officer" has lost in the New Testament all trace of its origin (Mt 5:25; Lu 1:2 and many passages; compare stellein, and sustellein, where the idea of "furling" or "shifting a sail" is entirely lost: 1Co 7:29; 2Co 8:20).
Figurative:
In Hebrews the hope of the gospel is figured as "an anchor .... sure and stedfast, and entering into that which is within the veil" (6:19, especially with Ebrard's note in Alford, at the place). James, showing the power of little things, adduces the ships, large though they be, and driven by fierce winds, turned about by a very small "rudder" (pedalion), as "the impulse of the steersman willeth" (Jas 3:4). In Revelation there is a representation of the fall of Babylon in language reminiscent of the fall of Tyre (Eze 27:1-36), in which lamentations arise from the merchants of the earth who can no more buy her varied merchandise (ton gomon, "cargo" the Revised Version margin), and shipmasters and passengers and seafaring people look in terror and grief upon the smoke of her burning (Re 18:12-18).
LITERATURE.
The usual books on Greek and Roman antiquities furnish descriptions and illustrations. Works on the monuments like Layard, Nineveh, II, 379 ff; Maspero, Ancient Egypt and Assyria; Ball, Light from the East, and Reissner, Cairo Museum Catalogue, "Models of Ships and Boats," 1913, contain descriptions and figured representations which are instructive. On shipping and navigation in classical antiquity Smith of Jordanhill, Voyage and Shipwreck of Paul, is still the standard authority.
T. Nicol