The God Culture: "The Search for King Solomon's Treasure" Book Review
For centuries the notion that the Philippines is Ophir has been the province of wistful explorers, inquisitive Jesuits, cranks, and iconoclastic revisionist historians. Now Timothy Jay Schwab and his band of merry men known as The God Culture, who embody all four of the aforementioned categories especially the last one, are attempting to bring this same idea into the mainstream. Tim and his group have published a book that they claim proves indisputably beyond any contradiction that the Philippines is indeed Ophir, the land from whence King Solomon procured his fabulous wealth and the ancient Greeks' source of gold. On the back cover they proudly declare that this book is a "great revelation amending modern scholarship."
This book is the end result of The God Culture's hundreds of Youtube videos and it reads just the way Tim talks in those videos. That is quite a problem because the first thing to notice about this book, aside from the fact that a few pages came loose indicating the binding is bad, is it's shrill, antagonistic, defensive, and prideful tone. On nearly every single page from the beginning to the end The God Culture wants the reader to know they are right, scholars are wrong, they have vetted and tested everything, scholars have overlooked everything, and no one can disprove their four years of research especially not any scholar who has devoted a lifetime of study to the topics The God Culture covers. They accuse some of those scholars as being liars and propagandists. With a variant of that hubris glaring angrily back at the reader on nearly every page the book becomes rather burdensome to read. It's obvious they are carrying a huge chip on their shoulder.
"This is why we demand they prosecute the sweeping conclusions...." pg. 23"We are haggard of this generation..." pg. 23
"Let's firm this up with girth." pg.46"If not, they are worship." pg.258
Purchas was a Rothschild puppet paid to propagate the opposition to the Philippines as Ophir. That's called propaganda.
In ancient times, the world generally especially the writers of the Bible believed the earth a flat round disc essentially. This is the perspective from which this is written not the modern sphere. We do not enter such debate but when one follows the actual orientation of the time, they will find it revealing. Anyone claiming the ancients believed in a sphere failed to pay attention in science class and are no scholars on the topic.
Hebrew: Owphiyr: reducing to ashes, fine gold.
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| pg. 24 |
The origin of the chemical symbol for gold, AU, is said to be the Latin Aurum or Aurea which we will determine in the next chapter is the equivalent of Ophir. The is the kingdom of gold for the Greeks which carried over uno Latin but AUPYR is the origin of that reference as you will find this the true origin of the symbol for gold - AU.
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| https://vulgate.org/ot/1kings_9.htm |
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| https://vulgate.org/ot/job_28.htm |
....to whom Solomon gave this command, that they should go along with his own stewards to the land that was of old called Ophir, but now the Aurea Chersonesus: which belongs to India: to fetch him gold.
Aurea in Latin is Chryse in Greek which is Ophir in Hebrew. He also ties this to the Indian land of golden antiquity and remember, India was vast in interpretation in those days from Afghanistan to the Indies including the Philippines.
p.34
The island of Chryse which Josphus has told us is Biblical Ophir....
p.43
Josephus never wrote that. Do you see the sleight of hand? Josephus wrote that Solomon sent ships to Ophir which is the Aurea Chersonesus which means golden peninsula. He calls that peninsula Ophir and says nothing about an island. Furthermore Josephus says it belongs to India.
Tim is able to make this sleight of hand because of his false etymology of "Aurea in Latin is Chryse in Greek which is Ophir in Hebrew." He is again transposing words, this time Aurea and Chryse. In Tim's mind the Aurea Chersonesus becomes Chryse Chersonesus and thus the island of Chryse. But chersonesus means peninsula not island. Tim ignores that word dropping it completely and makes a huge geographic blunder misinterpreting and misrepresenting what Josephus actually wrote. On page 34 Tim even admits chersonesus means peninsula.
He (Jospehus) renders it in Latin Aurea Chersonesus in which Aurea or Aururm is the origin of the chemical symbol "AU" for gold and Chersonesus is the word for peninsula. It is an island.
Despite this admission Tim insists it is is an island. He totally ignores what Josephus wrote and gives no reason for it.
In the century following Josephus Ptolemy wrote about the Aurea Chersonesus in his Geography. He is clear that the place is a peninsula, not an island, and he actually lists names of towns and rivers which flow in the region. Ptolemy's description of the Aurea Chersonesus is very detailed. However Tim does not think Ptolemy is credible at all.
Pliny never alludes to Chryse as a peninsula. He firmly identifies it as an island several times and to claim this noted geographer was confused about the difference is illogical. Ptolemy makes that error but his map is no where near credible regarding Southeast Asian geography which is practically non-existent.
pg. 34
If Tim thinks the Aurea Chersonesus is actually the singular island Chryse and thus the archipelago known as the Philippines then he should have discussed Ptolemy's description of the place and told us why it is not credible but he does not. He ignores it altogether by dismissing it out of hand as not being credible. Paul Wheatley has not ignored it. He wrote a whole book about the subject and a 21 page paper about Ptolemy's description can be read at JSTOR.
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| https://www.jstor.org/stable/621273?seq=1 |
But Tim does not care what Wheatley has to say on the matter as he considers him to be an academic fraud. On page 30 of the sourcebook which accompanies "Solomon's Treasure" Tim writes the following:
Wheatley quotes these directions and then ignores them to attempt to lead to the Malay Peninsula which was proven false as Ophir especially by the Portuguese who first occupied the area yet continued searching for Ophir elsewhere. Magellan specifically identified the Philippines as Ophir/Chryse and Tarshish/Argyre. So many authors on this topic continue to ignore the Philippines exists yet these directions are obvious. In fact, just about every reference including Ptolemy rule out the Malay Peninsula as it is not and island and this was well known even by him, Josephus and others. The did not know the isles of the Philippines yet before the Common Era but they would. To go backwards is progressing though and pull out places already eliminated is backwards reasoning. No actual modern scholarship could possibly lead to the Malay Peninsula which was proven not to be Ophir despite the British attempt at academic fraud continue to propagate a dead claim. The Beatus Map further ties Ophir/Chryse to the Garden of Eden which we see often. Obviously, the Rivers of Paradise cannot be such modern rivers as the originate in precipitation and Gen. 2:5 says there was no rain before the Flood this they did not exist. Also, it fails to recognize the largest river, the River From Eden itself a most so-called theories do. The Garden of Eden was located when Ophir was found.
The directions referred to is the description of Chryse given by Dionysius Periegetes. The level of ignorance in this note is rather astounding. To write that Ptolemy does not describe the Malay Peninsula is to be ignorant of his detailed description of towns and rivers and the geography in general. No matter how you slice it Ptolemy is describing a peninsula and not an island. It appears that Tim has not read Ptolemy at all or else has read him very selectively. Tim is also once again conflating the mythical island of Chryse with the very real Aurea Chersonesus. Even the Behaim map of 1492, which Tim extols as a major proof for his theories, designates the Aurea Chersonesus as a peninsula while the island of Chryse is placed elsewhere.
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| https://philippinefails.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-god-culture-finding-chryse-dont.html |
This verse (Isiah 24:15) even identifies the isles of the sea which we will later prove is Ophir even tying Ophir to this same word for light which is it's true origin etymologically. AUR is "light" and insert PY for AUPYR and it renders "Mouth of Light."
pg.25
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| https://www.pealim.com/dict/1380-lismor/ |
Samar Island:Hebrew name: סָמַר he/it bristled. Past Tense
Bristled in English:1 (of hair or fur) stand upright away from the skin, as a sign of anger or fear. 2 react angrily or defensively. 3 (bristle with) be covered with or abundant in
Our Interpretation: Standing Upright in Righteous Anger in Abundance
Samar is said to be derived from Samad, the Visayan word for "wound" or "cut", describing the rough physical features of the land which is rugged and deeply dissected by streams.
...Samar likely named for Samaria.p.189
Meaning Shemer's Place, Place Of Watch Keeping Etymology From the verb שמר (shamar), to keep or guard.
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| https://scholars.sil.org/sites/scholars/files/stephen_h_levinsohn/papers/contextualisedhebrewteaching.pdf |
Commenting on this paper Tim says:
Did he say Biblical Hebrew? The Spanish certainly relabeled portions of the Philippines but not all and not all of their names cemented either.
pg. 178
Rome did not benefit from this knowledge so easily as this was established by Israel with Phoenicia managing the route. Greece inherited this and, as they represent Tarshish's family. That makes sense.
pg. 125
Throughout history, the Philippines was recorded as the Land of Gold by other nations. The Greeks named it Chryse, "The Golden One." Indian history called it Suvarnadwipa or "Island of Gold" as the Periplus is the record of those directions. The Chinese log the Philippines as Lusong Dao "Isles of Gold" in 200 A.D. Buddhist i-Tsing named it Chin-Chou "Isle of Gold" and Chin-Lin, "Golden Neighbor" in 671 A.D. which is Suvarnadwipa. Finally the Chinese characterize the Philippines as Chin-San, "Mountain of Gold. [See Sourcebook]
pg. 44
During the reign of Augustus, an increasing number of Greeks were trading with the west coast of India. They reached the east coast, probably over land, around the middle of the first century. One of their pilots, who collected his information in the second half of the first century, but whose personal experience did not reach beyond the west coast, wrote a detailed guide for voyages around the Indian Ocean, the Periplous. His account of the exploration of the mouth of the Ganges and beyond is therefore probably based on information which he gathered in ports along the northwest coast of India. This information contained only vague indications about the exact location of the places mentioned. The writer was told about a mainland region called "Golden," the most eastern continent toward the orient, situated around, above, beyond (he peri auten) the Ganges mouth. Downwards from, opposite to or near the same river (kat’auton de ton potamon) ,however, and also an extreme eastern part of the inhabited world, lying exactly towards sunrise (hup'auton aneohonta ton he'lion), i.e., due east, lay an oceanic island of the same name.
pg.3
If Suvarnadvipa (or whatever a Gold Island was called in the language they used) for the pilots of the first century was an island in the strict sense of the word and a particular one, from the end of the seventh century onward there is no doubt at all that this island was Sumatra. The connection is accepted by I-tsing, by the Ndlanda inscription and by Nepalese and Arab sources as self-evident.
This name for Sumatra was well founded on its rich deposits of gold and silver.
pg.4
....West Sumatra, Indonesia which is actually in Ham's territory not even Shem's.pg. 222
Obviously, the chief object of the work is to exalt the Law (and Hasidæan practise) as divinely ordained and fixed from eternity, to extol the institutions of the Sabbath and circumcision as heavenly signs distinguishing Israel from the rest of the nations, and, finally, to draw the sharpest possible lines of demarcation between Israel and the Gentiles—in striking contrast to the practise of the Hellenist party.
Galatians 3:17 And this I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect.
Many seek this architecture in demand to prove this narrative and they are stuck in a false paradigm. There is none to be expected nor has any other nation on earth produced such nor will they.Ancient Ophir is never described as having temples at all whether alone ones of gold, it is never recored to have great infrastructure in any sense just a mega-abundance of resources. The humble lifestyle of the Filipino even fits the oath of a Rechabite as Farrisol said.
pg. 128-129
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| pg.20 |
This attested fragment confirms the existence of the land of gold from which King Solomon's navy imported resources. It also demonstrates Ophir is a legitimate, physical land of Gold and no legend.
Many have attempted to debate that the Philippines does not have elephants and look around today and this is a true point but not in antiquity.
pg. 98
However, one must overlook tons of archaeology in order to conclude elephants were not native to the Philippines including the very latin identification of species which is specific to the Philippines such as Rhinoceros philippinensis unearthed in Fort Bonaficio along with Stegedon luzonensis, Bubalus cebuensis, a dwarf buffalo found in Cebu and Elephas Beyeri named after anthropologist H. Ottley Beyer who found these bones on Cabarruyan Island In Luzon.
pg.100
NOTE: Taprobane is not South of the Philippines in reality but in the perspective of the flat earth maps of the first century, it most certainly was. In 124 B.C., that was still the thinking and one must reconcile the meaning from the author’s mindset. Also, note the use of Taprobana in that period remains a question as to whether the inference is Sri Lanka or Sumatra. That debate was not settled until the 17th century. No one knows to which Dionysius was actually referring in 124 A.D. but such debate is unnecessary to settle in order to locate Chryse by all the markers present which are very obvious.
The earliest documented mention of the spherical Earth concept dates from around the 5th century BC, when it was mentioned by ancient Greek philosophers. In the 3rd century BC, Hellenistic astronomy established the roughly spherical shape of the Earth as a physical fact and calculated the Earth's circumference.
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| Romer Pg. 118 |
§ 3.62 Moreover, it is fertile and teems with a different type of human being and other animals. It sustains ants that are no smaller than the biggest dogs, ants that reportedly guard, like griffins, gold that is mined from deep within the earth, and that pose the greatest threat to anyone who touches it. India also sustains monstrous snakes that with their bite and the winding constriction of their bodies can stop an elephant in its tracks. It is so rich in some places and has such productive soil that in this country honey drips from the leaves, trees bear wool, and rafts of split bamboo even convey, like ships, two persons at a time, some even conveying three at a time.
§ 3.67 The Palibothri hold the coastline from Point Tamus to the Ganges. From the Ganges to Point Colis, except where it is too hot to be inhabited, are found black peoples, Aethiopians so to speak. From Point Colis to the Indus the shores are straight, and peoples live there who are timorous and quite prosperous because of the sea's riches.
§ 3.70 Alongside Point Tamus is the island of Chryse, beside the Ganges the island of Argyre. The first has golden soil — so the old writers have handed down — the other has silver soil. Moreover, as seems to be the case really, either the name comes from the fact, or the legend comes from the designation. Taprobane is said to be either a very large island or the first part of the second world, but because it is inhabited, and because no one reportedly has circumnavigated it, the latter interpretation is as good as true.
India is the most distant of inhabited lands towards the East
Herodotus is the strongest proof against everything Tim is claiming. For instance he claims that Greeks were trading with the Philippines and vice versa by 800 B.C. and that they were taking the long way around Africa.
Even after Solomon, King Jehoshaphat attempted to rebuild and re-establish trade with Ophir yet the ships were destroyed by Yahuah (1 Ki. 22-48). Understand that this is very close to the era in which the Northern Kingdom was about to be taken captive in to the very land Jonah was preaching repentance and salvation. Therefore Ophir had to bring goods to Israel instead which we see in Jonah's story. The ships of Tarshish were certainly trading in Israel again traveling the long way around Africa to the port at Joppa (Jn. 1:1-13) as did the There Kings after Messiah's birth in about 6 B.C. or so.
pg. 136
Tim does not explicitly write that the Greeks were sailing "the long way around Africa" to the Philippines but that is implied when he writes:
The Greeks traded with the Philippines for gold and silver roughly around 800-150 B.C. and Mela retained this from the "olden writers" of Greece.
p.43
Funny that Mela nowhere indicates the islands of Indonesia in his description of the world despite getting his information from "olden writers." Did they not know about Sumatra, Java, and Borneo? In the map above Tim has the Malay Peninsula blocked out with the caption reading:
This area missing from most first century maps. Most cartographers and historians melt India bleeding into China. Indochina and Malaysia are not even there. This must be taken into account in order to interpret
The Phoenician merchants were very conservative which is why they were the best in their era. They did not wreck often because they hugged the coasts and only sailed in the daytime avoiding obstacles hard to see at night.
pg.130
The sentence from page 43 implies the Greeks circumnavigated Africa because, as Tim mentions in the paragraph from page 136, the Red Sea port was broken. Even if it weren't broken the Greeks did not control that territory so it would have been impossible for them to sail out of that port.
But the fact is NO ONE was making that journey. No one was circumnavigating Africa on a regular basis. Just because Herodotus records the Phonecians doing it once at the command of Pharaoh does not prove it was a regular shipping route. Read "The Circumnavigation of Africa" by Ciaran Branigan for more information. It is only 5 pages long because that's how little history there is of ancient mariners making that trip.
When The God Culture was asked if they would "direct me to more information about the Filipinos and Greeks trading with each other by sailing around Africa" I was given the terse reply:
We will not be expanding a chapter of our book just released now in email form. Yah Bless.
I am supposed to trust these guys to interpret a vast amount of information concerning the ancient Greeks yet they can't even understand my brief email. I did not ask them to expand on a chapter. All I wanted was a few links and to be pointed somewhere for more information but they refused to provide anything which would back up their claims. That's because they do not have such information as it does not exist. Their claim that Greeks and Filipinos were circumnavigating Africa for trade is a lie.
Herodotus indicates Ethiopia is the furthest land south anyone knew. From Book 3.114 of The History of Herodotus:
As one passes beyond the place of the midday, the Ethiopian land is that which extends furthest of all inhabited lands towards the sunset. This produces both gold in abundance and huge elephants and trees of all kinds growing wild and ebony, and men who are of all men the tallest, the most beautiful and the most long-lived.
He mentions no lands farther south than Ethiopia because the Greeks did not know of them. He does not even believe there is an ocean which encircles the earth! From Book 4.8 of The History of Herodotus:
Thus say the Scythians about themselves and about the region above them; but the Hellenes who dwell about the Pontus say as follows:—Heracles driving the cattle of Geryones came to this land, then desert, which the Scythians now inhabit; and Geryones, says the tale, dwelt away from the region of the Pontus, living in the island called by the Hellenes Erytheia, near Gadeira which is outside the Pillars of Heracles by the Ocean.—As to the Ocean, they say indeed that it flows round the whole earth beginning from the place of the sunrising, but they do not prove this by facts.
If the Greeks were circumnavigating Africa for trade with the Philippines one would think Herodotus would be well-informed about the existence of a worldwide ocean. After all he did take note of the best Grecian sailors, the Phocaians. From the Histories Book 1.163:
Now these Phocaians were the first of the Hellenes who made long voyages, and these are they who discovered the Adriatic and Tyrsenia and Iberia and Tartessos: and they made voyages not in round ships, but in vessels of fifty oars.
If the Phocaians were the first to make long voyages and Herodotus did not believe in the existence of a worldwide ocean then it stands to reason that no Greeks were rowing their boats the long distance from Greece to the Philippines. If they were Herodotus would certainly have known of such voyages and the existence of the worldwide ocean.
The territories spanned by Map 5 experienced only limited contacts with the classical world, and represent the easternmost reaches of reliable Greek and Roman geographical knowledge. Until the first century A.D., they were known almost exclusively through the account of Megasthenes, a Seleucid envoy to the Mauryan imperial court. Even at the peak of commercial contacts with the West, they showed few traces of Greek or Roman settlement, and– with the exception of Menander’s brief foray into the Ganges Valley c. 175 B.C.–none of conquest. Moreover, by the second century A.D. Western knowledge of their geography reached its zenith, since later works neither added new information nor even reproduced more than a fraction of the knowledge previously accumulated. By the third century, to judge by this trend as well as by the pattern of coin finds, contacts were declining in step with the fortunes of the Roman empire; by the fourth century, contact appears to have been confined largely to Sri Lanka.
pg.58
The Greeks never went to the Philippines. They never traded with the Philippines. It is impossible that they ever did because their knowledge of the East did not extend past India. That is a fact of history. The maps Tim uses to say otherwise reveal this fact in stark detail as there is no Indonesia.
If Tim wants to prove the Greeks were regularly rowing their Triremes to the Philippines around Africa engaged in a bustling trade in gold and silver he's going to have to actually prove it and not just assert it by saying "that makes sense" and giving wrong directions to a mythical island of gold based on Greek maps as if that surmounts any of the problems he is facing regarding the Greek's lack of knowledge of Indonesia. There is too much he passes by without discussing and that is very problematic. For his case to be "monumental" it should also be thorough. As it stands there is much information Tim does not care to sift through and discuss.
However he is eager to bring up superfluous information like the Behaim Globe of 1492 which contains mythical locales like St. Brendan's Isle and the Dragon's Tail. Tim believes that the Greeks lost the exact location of Chryse and that the thinking of where this island lay progressed over time. We see this on Behaim's Globe where Chryse and Argyre have been placed in the vicinity of the Philippines. This leads Tim to utter absurdity as he really thinks Behaim has found and mapped out the Philippines.
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| An actual map of the Philippines vs The God Culture's map of the Philippines |
NOTE: Not only is Chryse beginning to take the geographic form of Luzon in 1492 on maps especially at the top but Argyre appears in the shape of Mindanao. Both are Northeast of Malaysia. That's called Philippines. SW of Luzon appears as Iloilo in shape The writing to the right under Japa by a red island similar in shape of Negros or Leyte is identified as an isle of Gold and Spices. Thilis, the famed Isle of Pearl is above Luzon likely inappropriately as it is more likely Palawan where the largest pearls are found. It was never Bahrain. SW of Argyre/Mindana the German text identifies the Magnetic Islands of Maniola. Ptolemy propagated a legend that one could not travel with lead near these magnetic isles. Far more likely, this is a reference to Manila and the many shipwrecks on the dangerous shoals in the South China Sea on the way there. Behaim did not know where everything was but he knew Chryse and Argyre were in the S. Chine Sea NOT Malaysia. Behaim corrects all of Ptolemy's guesses in geogprahy further to the East because they were not Malaysia as knowledge increased. Magellan, Pinto, Barbosa and the Portuguese especially knew better.
This passage speaks for itself as to its complete ridiculousness. How anyone could think that jumble of random shapes resembles the Philippines is beyond me.
Even though Tim haughtily looks downs his nose with contempt and disdain upon scholars and academicians all throughout this book, he still seeks their validation.
It is time for this to be taken seriously by those in authority, those in academia and those in the church.
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=690346041525416&id=376627072897316
If Tim wants to be taken seriously then he needs to act seriously. He needs stronger arguments and a more irenic tone towards those who have gone before him. You can't despise scholars calling them liars and propagandists all the while using their research, say no one can disprove your own research, arrogantly proclaim that your book is a "great revelation amending modern scholarship", and expect to be taken seriously.
This is the end of my review of The God Culture's book "The Search for King Solomon's Treasure." There is a lot of information in this book I did not touch on as it's a matter of space and strength of argument. The issues of etymologies and Chryse are the strongest arguments against Tim's theory. In summation this book is wanting and is by no means a "monumental case no one can disprove." The claim that Greeks and Filipinos circumnavigated Africa to trade with one another is certainly disprovable as it is an outright lie. But perhaps such historical inaccuracies ought to be overlooked as Tim has told us elsewhere in his videos that he is not proving an historical case.
"Remember one thing though. We are not proving an historical case here. That is not what this is. That is not what we ever claimed it to be. We are proving a multi-disciplined position with strong pose across-the-board. The reason our foundation is incredibly strong is because we set it in scripture and that is solid rock."
https://philippinefails.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-god-culture-finding-chryse-dont.html
The rest of the book from chapters 16 to 21 are all mostly religious in nature. We are greeted with puerile prophetic interpretations such as the Philippines being mentioned in Isaiah because Filipinos love to sing.
This next prophecy is a Filipino prophecy to the core. Singing is not just something many enjoy, it is in their prophetic DNA. How did Isaiah know this?
Isaiah 42:10 KJV
Sing unto the LORD a new song, and his praise from the end of the earth, ye that go down to the sea, and all that is therein; the isles, and the inhabitants thereof.
Isaiah is speaking to the Philippines who love to sing and most do not know why. It is because singing is in their very prophetic DNA as a commonality. This is not one group but "the inhabitants thereof..." "all that is therein the isles." The Philippines will sing a new song from the throne room of Yahuah and it will not be karaoke. This is their calling. They are the isles who sing His praise at the ends of the Earth.
pg, 249
I have not come across any bible prophecy interpretation this dumb since I reviewed The God Culture's Revelation 12 series. What is prophetic DNA? Is that kind of like midi-chlorians?
The best part of the book is the conclusion, chapter 21. In this chapter Tim wonderfully brings it all together and conjures up a fantastical view of history that is rather well-written compared to the rest of the book. However in the end his interpretation of the history of the Philippines as Ophir rests on the anti-Christian proposition that God's law will be restored in toto in the Philippines. Remember Timothy Jay Schwab and The God Culture are not only anti-trinitarian heretics but also teach the blasphemous and anti-Christian doctrine that faith in Christ is not enough, "the law is what redeems us." Tim is not as explicit here on this subject as he is elsewhere in his videos. Perhaps he is saving it for another book.
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