The God Culture: Did the Ancient Greeks Circumnavigate Africa to Trade With the Philippines?

One of the most outrageous and ridiculous claims made by Timothy Jay Schwab of The God Culture is that there was a regular and robust trade between the Philippines with Greece and Israel via circumnavigating Africa from the time of David to just after the time Jesus Christ was born. When asked for proof of this claim Tim was unable to give any yet he still included it in his book The Search For Solomon's Treasure. Fast forward two years and now Tim has produced a 6 part video series offering "proof" that ancient mariners did indeed circumnavigate Africa. Will this information be incorporated into any future editions of his book?

Let's take a look at all six videos and see if Tim accomplishes the impossible and proves that ancient Greeks, Israelites, and Filipinos were engaged in a network of trade by circumnavigating Africa.

The first video is evidence from the Bible. 

Did The Ancients Sail Around Africa? Bible Evidence. Solomon's Gold Series 16A

If you are expecting Tim to produce a Bible passage describing a journey around Africa you will be forgiven for being mistaken. This video presumes two things. First of all it presumes that the Biblical location of Tarshish is the Philippines. Tim thinks he has proven this but he has not and I have a three part series of articles breaking down his alleged proofs which do not add up. See parts 1, 2, and 3 for detailed information refuting that claim. Everything the Bible says indicates Tarshish must have been located in the Mediterranean basin. The existence of ancient tin ingots dating to the 13th-12th centuries BC, tin was said to have been brought back from Tarshish, being found in Israel which can be traced to Britain and not the Philippines is just one proof among many that Tarshish is not the Philippines.

The second thing this video presumes is that there was a robust trade between Israel and the Philippines (Tarshish) by the long way around Africa. Tim begins by affirming the conclusion before he has even proven it! His reasoning is that the Philippines is Tarshish, the port on the Red Sea at Eziongeber was busted, therefore the only way to Tarshish/Philippines by ship was to circumnavigate Africa.

2:52 This first video will set foundations specifically regarding biblical accounts where the Bible says ancients circumnavigated, they sailed around Africa as fact. The Bible is fact you know. If you don't believe that, well, don't call yourself a Bible scholar, uh, you know or a believer of the Bible. And yes it most definitely does no doubt say that. Uh, that will be our foundation.

Tim will go on to admit that the Bible does not specifically say that anyone circumnavigated Africa. His claim is based wholly on inference and not direct evidence. 

17:58 Does the Bible come out and say it? You know the Bible doesn't come out and say a lot of things but when you see the beginning of the narrative and the end of the narrative it's obvious what happened.

Based on the fact that the Red Sea port was destroyed Tim infers that the only way to Tarshish was by circumnavigating Africa.

30:23 Jonah tells us the ships of Tarshish from the land of Tarshish, not the ones from Israel, some get confused there, the original ones, the land itself in the Far East were still running. And guess what? They were circumnavigating Africa which his narrative is extremely clear leaving no room for anything else. Hmm. This is interesting. And again Tarshish was Greek and his descendants would be of Greek descent whether they lived in Greece or not.

In part three we restore Jonah's actual Journey according to the Bible account which almost every scholar and even pastor at that level has wrong. They just teach it wrong because they don't know and they're taught inaccurate geography. They just don't know what they're talking about.

First, they forgot the Red Sea port was toast and that's a huge forget. It's gone and all the ships as well so the only option was to circumnavigate Africa into the Atlantic into the Mediterranean and then Jonah says, this is history and geography right there in the Bible, says the ships going to Tarshish were right there in Joppa Israel. That's on the coast of Israel on the Mediterranean not on the Red Sea. Somehow they got around there but Jonah says the ship was in 800 BC so it was. And how exactly can we miss nor dismiss that? Willing ignorance of course. 

So, here we have history, yes history, that in 800 BC the ships of Tarshish, the Greek ships yes from the Greek colony over in the Philippines, were able to show up in Joppa Israel on the Mediterranean. How about that? There was no Suez Canal yet and the Red Sea port was out of commission. They circumnavigated Africa it was the only option and it's documented right here in 800 BC.

The Greek colony in the Philippines?? Don't expect to hear any more about that in this video or in any other video. Suffice to say there is no evidence of an Ancient Greek presence in the Philippines. Some armor alleged to be Ancient Greek was found in Mindanao but that claim does not hold up. I have written about that elsewhere.

One of Tim's main sources for all his claims about the Philippines being Ophir is the Periplus of the Erythean Sea which details ports of call and shipping routes going towards India. Is there such a source for the southern route around Africa? Of course not and Tim is at least honest enough to admit that but hardheaded enough to say "we don't need it" and asking for such a thing is illiterate.

38:39 Now, do we have the details where it says we went to this coordinate and we passed this coordinate and we passed that coordinate? Well, no we don't but we don't need it. This is ancient history folks. I mean it is absolutely illiterate for Academia to place such constraints on ancient history. Yes, today we'd have CCTV footage, right? Uh, we have lots of ways that we could prove things out and, uh, you know there maybe even GPS data, uh, you know. We have lots of ways we didn't have any of that back then so to try to take that Paradigm and put it on these ancient factual historic accounts is stupidity.

According to Tim the Periplus of the Erythean is a great resource about the ancient world but asking for the same thing concerning the circumnavigating of Africa, a guide to ports of call and trade routes, is stupid and illiterate and he does not need it. All he needs is the Bible.

40:31 And also let us not forget circumnavigating Africa, again, is no impediment to the Bible paradigm whatsoever. It's only Academia that made up such a thinking, right? I mean it's, you talk about scoffing. The very nonsensical thought that "well man couldn't circumnavigate Africa."

Which academics say ancient sailors could absolutely NOT circumnavigate Africa? Tim cites no one to back up this claim. It's just another opportunity for him to dump on scholars while puffing up himself. Tim does not cite a single academic or scholar in any of these videos yet he rails on them as if he knows what their opinions are. This is the height of hubris and ignorance. Once again magazine publisher and Christian rock singer Timothy Jay Schwab knows more than those who have devoted their lives to studying the ancient world. This schtick is getting old.

This so-called Biblical evidence is really of no weight here because it is reliant on Tim's faulty interpretation of the location of Tarshish being the Philippines. It also assumes the conclusion without actually proving it. What we are looking for here is proof of a robust and regular trade route between the Philippines and Greece and Israel. If it existed then there should be evidence of it and not just scraps found here and there in the Bible or elsewhere which need to be glued together to see the whole picture. It is simply inconceivable that the Greeks had trade route maps of India and none of Africa if they did indeed circumnavigate Africa. Asking for that kind of evidence is not illiterate seeing as such evidence exists for the trade routes to India. 

The second video deals mostly with the writings of Herodotus and Strabo which contain the limit of our knowledge concerning ancient trips around Africa.

Did The Ancient Greeks Sail Around Africa? To Ophir, Philippines? Solomon's Gold Series 16B 

Right off the bat Tim lowers the bar. Now instead of seeking to prove that ancient mariners sailed around Africa and engaged in a robust trade with the Philippines Tim is only seeking to prove whether circumnavigating Africa was POSSIBLE.

0:55 Did the ancient Greeks and others circumnavigate sail around the continent of Africa from the Mediterranean Sea into the Atlantic and Around the Horn of Africa all the way into the Indian Ocean? Was that possible?

But that is not the question. Contrary to what Tim says the testimony of Herodotus that the Phoenicians circumnavigated Africa is not contested by modern academics. However, while Herodotus says he did not believe the story Tim says that Herodotus only did not believe the part concerning the sun and that the story's inclusion is proof that Herodotus believed the story was true in toto. 

14:56 "There they said what some may believe though I do not." What doesn't he believe? Well, he's about to tell you but he didn't say he didn't believe the rest of what he said, did he? No that is illiterate to read it that way. "That in sailing around Libya they had the sun on their right hand." Well where were they? Well, they're down at the tip of Africa something he knows nothing about.

Hold the phone! If there was regular commerce between Greece and the Philippines by circumnavigating Africa then why would Herodotus know NOTHING about the tip of South Africa or that the sun changes positions when one sails around it? By the time he is writing these should be common facts if the trade route between Greece and the Philippines actually existed. This testimony undercuts Tim's claims and he does not even realize it. Herodotus did not just disbelieve what the Phoenicians said about the sun, he did not believe their journey was even possible because the Greeks did not believe the Indian and Atlantic Oceans merged! This is clearly seen in Ptolemy's world map which shows a landlocked Indian Ocean. 

Tim goes on to say that Herodotus would not have included this story if it were not actual history. 

23:08 Herodotus would not have included this in his history which is massive and very extensive, uh, if it wasn't history.

Has Tim even read Herodotus? Are there really fox-sized ants in India which mine gold? 

Here, in this desert, there live amid the sand great ants, in size somewhat less than dogs, but bigger than foxes. The Persian king has a number of them, which have been caught by the hunters in the land whereof we are speaking. Those ants make their dwellings under ground, and like the Greek ants, which they very much resemble in shape, throw up sand heaps as they burrow. Now the sand which they throw up is full of gold.

https://www.livius.org/sources/content/herodotus/the-gold-digging-ants/

The point is not everything Herodotus includes in his History is actually true or was believed by him to be true. In fact there are several times when he relates a story and says he does not believe it. That Tim could say something so stupid as Herodotus would not have included this story if it were not actual history or was believed by him to be true just goes to show he has not actually read Herodotus. But Tim does not actually care what Herodotus has to say because the alleged proofs from the Bible, which Herodotus ignores, are more than sufficient.

6:02 However, let's be clear Herodotus was the opposite of a Bible believer and the Bible already told us Tarshish the Greek circumnavigated Africa carrying Ophir and brothers to the Philippines. It also tells us Jonah hopped on a ship making the same Journey and circumnavigated Africa into the Indian Ocean as Tarshish is east of the Persian Gulf.

The possibility of the Phoenicians circumnavigating Africa is not debated by anyone these days. That singular journey is also not proof of a robust trade route between the Philippines and Greece and Israel. That is what needs proving. It cannot be proved and that is why Tim has lowered the bar to proving the trip was merely possible. Tim even admits that Herodotus knew nothing of the tip of South Africa which is patently ludicrous if there was a robust trade route that way concerning Greece. 

Tim's second witness is Strabo but Strabo's testimony proves beyond a doubt that if circumnavigating Africa  happened at all it was a rare event. Strabo tells us about Eudoxus who found part of a Phoenician ship in Ethiopia.

38:39 From this Eudoxus drew the conclusion that it was possible to circumnavigate Libya which is Africa, right? Uh, and that's what matters here.

He drew the conclusion that the circumnavigating Africa was possible? If there was robust trade between the Philippines and Greece and Israel by sailing around Africa then the route would be well known and there would be concrete proof of its existence of which Eudoxus would have been well aware. Remarkably in his quest to prove that Greeks were sailing around Africa to the Philippines Tim only gives his audience hints the the Greeks thought doing so was POSSIBLE but was actually done by others long before them not that they did so on a regular basis. 

This video ends with an appeal to Sinbad the Sailor. 

46:03 Oh, Sinbad the famous sailor was in the Philippines likely. Who would have known?

Indeed who would have known? Sinbad the Sailor never existed! He is a made up figure in the 1,001 Arabian Nights. Appealing to fictional characters is part of Tim's proof that ancient mariners were circumnavigating Africa on a regular basis to trade with the Philippines. How ludicrous is that?

It's not surprising that in this second video Tim lowered the bar to only proving the POSSIBILITY that ancient mariners circumnavigated Africa. The fact is none of the stories he cites, including that of Herodotus, can actually be proven to have ever taken place.

Up to today the historicity of none of these reported circumnavigations has ever been proved, and it probably never will. If they took place they certainly did not result in any understanding about the extent and course of Africa's coasts. None of these sailors left a route description such as the (sketchy) one of Hanno. Of the circumnavigation by Necho's Phoenicians we only know what Herodotus tells us (4.42): that the Phoenicians entered the ocean from the Red Sea, put in every autumn on the African coast to sow and harvest, reached the Pillars of Hercules in the third year and, what Herodotus does not believe, that they had the sun on their right—in the north—when they sailed around the southern end of Africa. The reason why Herodotus could not accept this statement about the position of the sun at midday was not because he thought it impossible that the sun could ever be seen in the north anywhere in the world. In Herodotus' time the changes in the position of the sun when one travelled south were well known. Herodotus had visited Elephantine (2.29) near the tropic of Cancer, where the sun is almost overhead during the summer solstice and south of which the shadows sometimes fall 'the wrong way'. His disbelief of the Phoenicians' statement is therefore not a result of primitive incredulity, but stems from the fact that he, like Strabo, could not believe that Africa stretched over the equator into the southern hemisphere.

https://journals.co.za/doi/pdf/10.10520/AJA03031896_926

Trotting out the same old stories everyone knows about alleged circumnavigations of Africa does not prove they happened nor does anything in this video prove that a robust trade via Africa between Greece and the Philippines existed. Quite frankly this video is a total failure.

Having given all the extant historical testimony to ancient voyages circumnavigating Africa and failing to prove there was a robust trade between the Philippines and Greece and Israel by circumnavigating Africa Tim moves on in the next two videos to discussing Greek and Roman maps.

The 1st Century Mapping Mindset. Greece to Ophir, Philippines? Solomon's Gold Series 16C

I have written elsewhere at length about these maps showing how Tim misuses them and does not understand them rightly. There is absolutely nothing new here but there are a few things Tim says which pertain to the alleged circumnavigation of Africa by the Greeks to trade with the Philippines which must be noted.

36:55 Now we have the end point and we have the full mapping. Uh, can we not draw the lines ourselves or did they have to do that for us too to show that they circumnavigated Africa in order to get from Greece to the Philippines? Duh. I mean do you really need to do that?

52:44 So Mela's talking about a route that the Greeks navigated. Yes, circumnavigating Africa for certain. That's what this is showing. This map documents that the Greeks circumnavigated Africa. Period. Even if you don't agree that those islands are the Philippines, which you really can't disagree with it, but even if you do you still have to conclude that the Greeks circumnavigated Africa. Done. I mean there wasn't even a canal built until 200 BC. Hello!? They were running this route from 800 to 150 BC. So duh. Now imagine that uh the 43 A.D mapping covers that whole era in fact. Now, that's evidence and it's indisputable evidence and again it proves that they circumnavigated Africa indeed successfully they brought back gold from Chryse. 

The map in question which Tim claims proves the Greeks circumnavigated Africa is that of Pomponius Mela. Notice how all of Sub-Saharan Africa is missing yet according to Tim this proves the Greeks were circumnavigating Africa. Apparently they forgot to make notes about the southern part of Africa.

What is of particular interest here is that Tim claims the Greeks "were running this route from 800 to 150 BC." That is an astounding claim seeing as there is abosolutley no evidence such is the case. Not in maps, not in histories, not in anything. Tim's reason for this lack of evidence is a simple ad hoc solution. The route around Africa was super-duper top secret and the Greeks told no one about it. 

29:45 The Greeks knew, uh, they knew how to sail to Chryse Ophir. They knew exactly where it was but why would the Greeks share their location for their land of gold so publicly while they're still going there? Hmm?? Think about that. The answer is easy. They wouldn't broadcast that. Oh, hello world here's where we go to get our gold. Oh, wait a minute you're all going there too? Oh I, I didn't mean for you to go I was just letting you know because I didn't think anybody would follow the route. Duh!

Except in the second video Tim gave testimony that this route was taken by the Phoenicians among others. But even if this were the case, that the Greeks refused to share their top secret trade route, surely there would be physical evidence that this route took place. There would be Ancient Greek artifacts up and down the West African coast. There might even be a reference to the route in a document kept hidden  which has been preserved to our times much like the Dead Sea Scrolls. 

Tim claimed in the first video that Philippine (Tarshish) ships were regularly sailing around Africa to Israel and Greece so surely there would be evidence of Philippine artifacts in West Africa as well as North Africa, Greece and Israel. And with the route being sailed by Filipinos, Greeks, and Phoenicians surely someone wrote it down or made note of it somewhere. After all this is 700 years of alleged history according to Tim. It would be rather unusual that there would be no evidence at all of its existence after 700 years and Tim claims the route was being plied as late as 4 BC when the three Magi set sail from the Philippines to visit Jesus. But there is no such evidence of any kind that the Greeks or anyone else was circumnavigating Africa on a regular basis to trade with the Philippines for 700 years or more. It's all based on an argument from silence and from a wrong interpretation of Greek and Roman maps. 

Video E deals with maps used by Magellan and Columbus and is loaded with more of the same errors I have refuted elsewhere. Read my article, The God Culture: The Philippines is the Land Before Time, for a rebuttal of Tim's claim that the Cattigara of Ptolemy is in Samar in the Philippines and is attested so by Antonio Pigafetta as well as his interpretation of Martin Behaim's map. See my article The God Culture: Lequios and Lucoes Are Not the Same People Group for a rebuttal to his claims that Fernando Pinto was shipwrecked in the Lequois islands and gave coordinates that place it in Luzon. For a rebuttal to his ignorant remarks about Samuel Purchas read my article The God Culture: Samuel Purchas On Ophir, Tarshish, and The Philippines.  Take note that at no time has Tim ever dealt with the facts I present in those articles but he persists in his ignorance. 

All of these videos dealing with maps are more of the same nonsense showcasing Tim has no idea what he is talking about. There is nothing new here and there is certainly nothing proving that there was a robust trade between the Philippines and Greece which lasted between 800 and 150 BC and even as late as 4 BC according to Tim's claims about the Filipino Magi visiting Baby Jesus. Remember, that the Greeks circumnavigated Africa to trade with the Philippines on a regular basis for 700 years is what Tim is attempting to prove here. Yet for three videos he has gone wildly off course to discuss wholly irrelevant matters about maps which he has already addressed at length elsewhere. 

In the sixth and final video in this series Tim takes his audience back to the past once more to offer up proof that the Greeks circumnavigated Africa on a regular basis to trade with the Philippines in 800 BC. His proof consists not of history but of myth. 

Greek Oceanus World River and Rivers From Eden lead to the Philippines? Solomon's Gold Series 16F

This video is astounding in its ridiculousness. The gist of it is Tim claims the Greek myth of a river encircling the world, Oceanus, proves both that his bonkers Rivers From Eden theory is correct and that the Greeks circumnavigated Africa. He concludes this preposterous presentation with the following comments:

1:01:30 "At the edge of Oceanus Where God like Jason went." So, Jason and the Argonauts is a story that goes geographically at some point as far as the Philippines which means they circumnavigated Africa because they left from Greece and they didn't fly helicopters. Yes, the Greeks knew where it was and they traveled circumnavigating Africa to get there from very ancient times. And what it was indeed. I mean they knew. The Greeks knew where it was and what it was. Jason went to the land of gold in the Philippines where the sun rises and Oceanus ends. Boom! This ic clear.

1:13:30 Titans/Giants destroyed by the great Deluge of Oceanus when The Fountains of the great deep from within it exploded, the origin of the flood. It is just as the rivers from Eden. It's associated with a snake. You mean the Garden of Eden? Yeah that one. It's known for the White Rock or Lukas, uh, Ilocanos anyone? Maybe. Even the Atis mentioned could be very well the tribe from the Philippines likely. Ends in the land of gold and Garden of Eden Philippines firmly. From Africa goes to the Far East where Prometheus, Gadreel, stole knowledge of Good and Evil giving it to the man while that happened in the Garden of Eden. 

It all fits. It all ties and they had to circumnavigate Africa all these many times, okay? These characters, especially in the Odyssey and The Iliad, they're going there for physically in their ships even Jason and the Argonauts went to the Philippines. That's what it says.

Got it? Tim's proof that the Greeks were circumnavigating Africa is his interpretation of Greek mythology through the lens of his erroneous teaching of Biblical and Philippine history and the Book of Enoch. Jason and the Argonauts sailed to the Philippines therefore there was a robust trade between the Philippines and Greece and Israel for 800 or more years. That is ridiculous and is no proof at all. 

Tim's Rivers from Eden theory is that the world was created without an ocean and what we now know as ocean trenches are the Rivers From Eden. The flood came and buried them along with the Garden of Eden which is now situated under miles of mud beneath the Sulu Sea with Enoch and Elijah as its lone inhabitants. I have dismantled this silly theory elsewhere in my article The God Culture: The Rivers From Eden Are Not Ocean Trenches or watch my video The God Culture's Rivers From Eden Theory Proven to be False.

This video is too chock full of nonsense to deal with in-depth here and there is no need to trudge through it. The bottom line is that neither in this video nor in any of the previous 5 videos does Tim offer any evidence that there was a robust trade between the Philippines and Greece and Israel for well over 800 years by circumnavigating Africa. The only real historical proofs he offers are in video 2 and boil down to a few historical instances where the voyage was made by a few men and everyone telling the tale thought it either not believable or quite remarkable but certainly not something ordinary. But the singular journey of the Phoenicians does not equate to a robust trade between the Philippines and Greece and Israel by  circumnavigating Africa lasting over 800 years. That 800 year history of trade is what Tim needs to prove. He has failed miserably in that endeavor.

Tim offers ZERO archeological evidence for his claims but instead goes off on wild and obfuscating tangets about maps and myths. But who needs archaeology? Ignorant agitators. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52c7XnuHDLQ&lc=Ugz_krXUKIbjerTxqc94AaABAg

Rich G****n: These agitators are looking archeology evidence simply ignoramus. All videos in TGCs research are super easy to learn. Yah bless!

The God Culture: Yah Bless. 

If you are interested in the real history of the circumnavigation of Africa by ancient explorers read the following:

The Ancient Explorers, pgs 86-106

One final thing here and that is Tim's dismissal of my work. I am mentioned several times in this series. Here is one glaring instance.

47:28 If an academic wants to come at us you better do much more than ridicule because we prove your paradigm stupid on this topic many times over even in this video. When you learn how to read a map, and how to read period, then try to come at us. Go ahead. But if you haven't reviewed our position you will be muted every time. Our channel our rules. No debate in ignorance. We're not wasting our time with such. Otherwise every single enemy, especially the racist blogger who hates everything Filipino and should be in jail, though likely still will, looks like a fool here, especially his 60 plus illiterate blogs all proven stupid.

https://youtu.be/ujhoOzu88cY?t=2848

That is all a lie. Tim has not proven any of what I have written to be wrong or stupid. In fact he never deals with the issues I bring up except to dismiss me with ridicule and threaten me with jail time. He does to me exactly what he accuses his detractors of doing to him. But I say unto Timothy Jay Schwab if you want to come at me you better do much more than ridicule because I have proven your paradigm stupid on this topic many times over even in these videos.