Even long before the times of Jesus and the Apostle Paul, Malta was the rocky knob at the western edge of the Roman Empire, the place where the leftovers of the Mediterranean Sea washed up and dug in.

And Malta is the site of what Huntsville (Alabama) software salesman John Harkins believes will be the last and best quest of his life.

Harkins, a mild-mannered, Bible-reading, Church of Christ deacon and marine biologist, is determined to be the first person since the biblical Luke to see evidence of the ship that carried Paul nearly to Rome.

“I’m quite in the minority in thinking there might be some remnant,” Harkins said, unrolling charts of the island on his desk at work. “But I know we’re going to find something, though it may not be from Paul’s wreck.”

According to Acts 27, a chapter in Luke’s history of the nascent Christian movement, a huge ship loaded with grain, sailors, soldiers, prisoners, and passengers crashed into the coast at the end of a 14-day storm.

The ship broke in half, spilling everyone into the sea. Miraculously, the entire crew was able to struggle to shore, where they were met by the inhabitants of the island, who built them a fire.

“The natives showed us unusual kindness,” Luke writes.

Harkins can’t remember a time when the story of Paul’s shipwreck didn’t fascinate him. It was one of the stories that leapt out of the dim and musty antiquity of ancient stories to snap

“The very first time I read it, it sounded so real,” Harkins said. “I thought, ‘Holy cow, I know this happened!’ I had no doubt it was real.”

Doubt is something he’s hoping to help other people overcome if he finds evidence confirming Luke’s account.

“It could be one more thing where somebody said something didn’t exist and we can say, ‘Yeah. It did,’” Harkins said. “Maybe it will help someone who has lost their faith and wants to come back.”