The God Culture: Testing Pinto's Accuracy

Five years ago, in February of 2020, Timothy Jay Schwab who is The God Culture edited a few of his videos which I had critiqued. They weren't very good edits as the audio remained the same while only the slides had changed, resulting in contradictions. Once more Tim has relented and retracted a glaring lie which I pointed out in an article critiquing his conflation of Peter Fidalgo and Fernando Pinto. Yet, just as with those dishonestly edited videos from years ago, Tim's recent retraction is not all that it seems. 

https://thegodculturephilippines.com/testing-pinto-s-accuracy-a-further-geographic-reassessment-of-lequios-lucones-and-latitude-drift/

It will be best to examine a few of the more important arguments as a whole rather than each one individually. Tim begins by appealing to "the spirit of scholarly rigor and transparency." 

In the spirit of scholarly rigor and transparency, we undertake a further testing of Fernão Mendes Pinto's account regarding the "Lequios" Islands, prompted by recent critiques. Through this reassessment, we aim not only to clarify a factual correction regarding the identities of Peter Fidalgo and Pinto, but also to reinforce the broader historical-geographical case that Pinto’s descriptions overwhelmingly align with Luzon and the northern Philippine islands, not with the Ryukyu Islands. Far from weakening the position, this deeper analysis only strengthens it.

Clarifying Peter Fidalgo vs. Pinto

Upon careful review, it is acknowledged that Peter Fidalgo and Fernão Mendes Pinto appear to have been distinct individuals. Galvão’s account references Peter Fidalgo being blown northward to the "Isle of the Lucones" (Luzon) around 1545. Given the extremely close dates and geographic proximity, both accounts clearly refer to the same broader region. Meanwhile, Pinto records his own shipwreck experience and subsequent captivity in the "Lequios" Islands. 

Though it is difficult to extract meaningful points from a critic so infected with viral venom and demonic, unacademic rigor, it is fair to acknowledge that even flawed adversaries occasionally stumble upon a technical correction. Yet he utterly fails to realize that his observation — even if granted — has no bearing on the final conclusion.

After reading my article Tim has come to the conclusion I am correct. Pinto and Fidalgo are not the same person. But only technically. Yeah, it's only a technicality that Tim conflated the identities of two distinct persons. It's not a glaring foundational error. 

https://thegodculturephilippines.com/galv%C3%A3o-s-maritime-flow-the-true-geography-of-ophir-lequios-and-japon%C3%AAs/

Did Tim not engage in scholarly rigor and careful review before he created this slide and wrote his article? This error and correction is not a technicality. It's not a slip up. It's not a mistake. Tim's article, and the slide that accompanies it, is a lie. He has not read Pinto's journal. He has not done any scholarly rigor or careful review. If he had then he would never have fused Pinto and Fidalgo into the same person. Did this obvious and blatant falsehood pass muster with the alleged God Culture Research Team? Was this lie a team thing or a Tim thing? 

But Tim waves it all away and says even though I am correct it "has no bearing on the final conclusion." The conclusion being that the Lequios Islands and the Philippines are the same location. The whole argument rests on Tim's assertion that Pinto's lone coordinate for the Lequios Islands of 29° N is wrong and must be interpreted as a range of latitudes somewhere between 9° and 20°. Tim continues:

Worse still, he neglects the very foundation of his own argument: the scholar he quotes, Rebecca Catz, explicitly doubted Pinto’s coordinate reliability across multiple accounts. Thus, his attack collapses under the weight of his own evidence. Furthermore, critics demanding perfect year-matching from Pinto commit academic fraud against the historical record. Scholars explicitly warned that Pinto’s voyage timelines, dates, and navigational details are often imprecise or dramatized. His broader descriptions — not precise days or coordinates — are the evidential core.

What a ridiculous straw man. The foundation of my argument IS NOT REBECCA CATZ! The foundation of my argument is Fernando Pinto's journal which Tim, as far as I am aware, has yet to cite in any video or article he has produced on the subject. Imagine that. Tim is so gung-ho to draft Pinto onto his team yet he won't even glance at his scouting report! Here it is in the original Portuguese.

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.a0005237771&seq=264&q1=lequia

Esta ilha léquia jaz situada em vinte & nove graos

Vinte & nove graos means 29 degrees. There is no room for interpreting this as a place between 20 and 9 degrees. Here is a modern Portuguese version:

Essa ilha léquia jaz situada em vinte e nove graus

https://fundar.org.br/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/peregrinacao-vol-ii.pdf pg. 53

29 degrees. End of story. There is no wiggle room for any other interpretation except 29 degrees because that is what the text says. Tim dismisses Pinto’s clearest geographic anchor because it conflicts with his thesis, not because Pinto was ambiguous here. His entire case crumbles under the weight of a single, unambiguous number: twenty-nine degrees.

The rest of my argument lies in Pinto's description of his shipwreck and subsequent captivity. I have posted that part of the journal here. But let's quote the narrative of the shipwreck from Rebecca Catz's translation since Tim mentions her. 

Driven by their hunger for profits, in only two weeks they readied nine junks that were in the harbor at the time, all of them so ill prepared and poorly equipped to sail that some of them were carrying as pilots only the ships' owners, who knew absolutely nothing about the art of navigation. And that was how they departed, all together, on a Sunday morning, against the wind, against the monsoon, against the tide, and against all reason, without a moment's thought for the perils of the sea, but so blind and obstinate in their determination to leave that none of these drawbacks were considered. And I too went along on one of them. 

In this manner, that first day they picked their way blindly between the islands and the mainland, and at midnight, in a dense fog, with heavy rain and wind that descended upon them, they all foundered upon the shoals of Gotom,' at latitude thirty eight degrees; with the result that only two of the nine junks, by a great miracle, escaped, while the other seven were all lost, with not a single survivor from any of them. The losses were estimated at more than 300,000 maadas in merchandise, to say nothing of the much greater loss of six hundred people who died on them, including 140 Portuguese, all rich, honorable men. 

We proceeded on our course in the two junks that escaped miraculously, sailing together in consort until we got as far ahead as the Ryukyu Islands,' and there, with the conjunction of the moon, we were struck by such a fierce contrary wind from the northeast that we never saw each other again. And there, sometime near afternoon the wind shifted to west-northwest, and the seas became on heavy with swells and waves so high that it was a most frightful thing to see. When our captain, a wry courageous nobleman by the name of Gaspar de Melo,• saw that the junk was already leaking at the stem, with nine handspans of water filling the hold of the lower dock, he decided, after consultation with the ship's officers, to cut away both masts because they were splitting the junk. The dismasting was done as carefully and cautiously as possible, but in spite of all the precautions taken, it could not be accomplished safely enough to avoid catching beneath the weight of the big pole fourteen people, five of them Portuguese. All of then, were crushed, each one bursting into a thousand bits—a most pitiful thing to see—which brought our spirits so low that we were left in a state of shock. 

With all that, the storm grew gradually worse, and suffering great hardship, we abandoned ourselves to the fury of the sea until nearly sundown when the junk finally split wide open. Then, when the captain and all the rest of the people saw the sad state to which our sins had reduced us, we sought refuge in an image of our Lady, to whom we prayed, with many tears and loud cries, asking her to intercede for us with her blessed Son to pardon us for our sins, for by then none of us expected to come out of this alive. We spent most of the night this way, and with the junk half waterlogged we drifted on till the end of the midwatch, when we ran aground on a reef. At the first impact the junk was smashed to bits, and sixty-two people lost their lives, some drowned and others crushed under the keel, a tragedy as painful and heartrending as anyone of sound judgement can imagine.

There were only twenty-four of us, besides some women, who survived this miserable shipwreck. When day broke we could tell from the landmarks of Fire Island and the Tavdacéo Mountains that we were off the main island of the Ryukyus. Wounded as we were from all the cuts and abrasions we had sustained on the oyster beds and rocks of the reef, we all gathered together, and commending ourselves tearfully to the Lord, we began to walk breast deep in the water, even swimming in some places. We kept on going this way for five consecutive days, suffering from extreme hardship as one can imagine, without finding a thing to eat in all that time except for some rockweed. At the end of these five days it was the will of the Lord that we should reach shore.

Travels of Mendes Pinto, pgs 287-288, Translated by Rebecca Catz

Pinto leaves Ningbo China. Shortly thereafter a storm arises and he is immediately shipwrecked in the Lequios Islands which is translated here as the Ryukyu Islands. Ningbo China is at 29.8683°N. Tim would have us believe that after a storm destroyed his ship Pinto drifted for many days over hundreds of miles until he landed in Luzon!

The journal does not support that happening. Not even the possibility is hinted at. If such had been the case there would have been no survivors. The timeline is clear: departure from China, storm, then immediate shipwreck in the Lequios Islands. 

Tim's ad-hoc work around is that Pinto's journal is not reliable. 

Scholars such as Rebecca Catz and Donald Lach have long noted that Pinto’s Travels contains numerous geographical imprecisions:

• Catz notes directly that Pinto’s narrative "has confused places and times" and "conflated events" in many cases.

• She states that Pinto's voyage timelines do not always match realistic sailing durations, meaning Pinto sometimes compressed or stretched timelines inaccurately.

• She warns that Pinto sometimes confused river systems and coastal shapes, making his geographic coordinates unreliable.

• She emphasizes that some of the places Pinto describes seem to be conflations—two different places blended into one narrative.

• Voyage timelines do not always align with realistic sailing durations causing one to question dates in Pinto's account.

• Some accounts appear to blend separate events or locales into single narratives. 

These well-known characteristics of Pinto’s writing caution against rigid literalism, especially regarding geographic coordinates. This is why a straightforward reading of Pinto’s account — as reflected by Cheock’s view that the voyage covered between 9° and 20° North — remains a valid interpretation within the historical context.

The quotation was accurately reflected and properly sourced with the original context in our Sourcebook. Most importantly, the overall conclusion — that the Lequios correspond to the Philippine archipelago — remains fully intact and reaffirmed by the broader weight of historical evidence.

Critically, Pinto’s 29°N latitude claim likely reflects one or more of the following factors:

• A navigational error typical of the period, worsened by the aftermath of a catastrophic storm.

• Survival-driven dead reckoning without accurate instruments.

• Post-facto narrative compression, blending multiple geographic impressions into a single storyline.

• An intention to describe the region between 9° and 20° North, matching the latitude corridor of Luzon and the northern Philippines.

To insist otherwise would render Pinto incorrect in his geographic placement — a known and recurring limitation acknowledged even by the scholars critics themselves cite. Yet even if his numbers drift, Pinto could never move the Land of Gold — the Lequios — long equated with King Solomon’s Ophir.

Thus, minor latitude discrepancies are neither unexpected nor disqualifying, and must be weighed against the totality of descriptive evidence. We maintain that interpreting Pinto’s voyage as spanning between 9° and 20° North remains more accurate, consistent with his broader pattern of approximate geographic reporting. Otherwise, his entire account falls apart as he clearly indicated Lequios in the Philippines just as maps of his era did. 

For one to deny the overwhelming evidence and hyperfocus on a perceived "gotcha" — which collapses under even minimal scrutiny — only proves their intent is not scholarly inquiry, but deliberate deception.

That is a whole lot of conjecture, unfalsifiable assumptions, and post-hoc justification to deny that 29 does not mean 29. Tim mentions "minor latitude discrepancies" thinking that somehow a range between 9° and 20°, which is hundreds of miles, is "a minor latitude discrepancy." What a joke. 

In a nutshell, Pinto's geographic coordinates are unreliable which means interpreting 29 "as spanning between 9° and 20° North remains more accurate, consistent with his broader pattern of approximate geographic reporting." But if they are unreliable then why is Tim relying on them at all by reinterpreting them? He is cherry-picking and contradicting himself.

Let's look at what Tim has to say about Rebecca Catz casting doubt on the reliability of Pinto's journal. 

1. "Has confused places and times" does not occur in the text

2. "Conflated events" does not occur in the text. 

3. "Pinto's voyage timelines do not always match realistic sailing durations" does not occur in the text. 

4. "Pinto sometimes confused river systems and coastal shapes" does not occur in the text.

5. "Some of the places Pinto describes seem to be conflations—two different places blended into one narrative" does not occur in the text.

6. Rebecca Catz, explicitly doubting Pinto’s coordinate reliability across multiple accounts does not occur in the text. 

Here is what Catz has to say about Pinto's reliability. 

Nevertheless, the debate on Pinto’s veracity and reliability continues. Veracity and reliability, it must be stressed, should be seen as two distinct problems. This delicate distinction becomes important when we stop to consider that if Pinto—to take the question of the discovery of Japan as an example—was not actually present on that historic occasion, he was certainly among the earliest group of travelers to arrive on the scene. As such he was close enough to events to have been in a position to pass on a fairly accurate description of the discovery, which cannot easily be dismissed by the historian as unreliable, or as any less reliable than hearsay European accounts, written long after the facts.

pg. xlii

Rebecca Catz does not say Pinto is unreliable. She says his accounts cannot be easily dismissed. In contrast, Tim's alleged citations from Catz about the unreliability of Pinto's journal are not to be found in her book. If Tim wants to discredit Pinto he is going to have to try a lot harder than fabricating phony citations. 

As for J.G. Cheock, Tim's claim that

Cheock’s view that the voyage covered between 9° and 20° North

is false. Cheock writes

Explorer and writer Ferdinand Mendes Pinto who travelled in service to the Portugese crown and in association with the Jesuit Missionaries, recounted in his journal, how he had been shipwrecked on the island of Lequois while passing through the Malay Archipelago. He described the Lequios as a land belonging to a large group of islands that had abundant resources of gold and silver. In his journal he had the audacity to give details on Lequois, putting it in the latitude of 9N20 on a meridian similar to that of Japan. Given these directions, Lequois would be at the very heart of the Philippines. The story of his shipwreck on Lequios was deemed so outrageous that it was omitted from his book when it was first published.

Phoenicians in the Lands of Gold, pg. 11

She says point blank that he located the Lequios Islands "in the latitude of 9N20 on a meridian similar to that of Japan." That is gibberish. 9N20 is not a geographic coordinate. Interpreting 9N20 as a range of latitudes is Tim's ad-hoc rationalization and defense of the indefensible. She also claims that the story of Pinto's shipwreck was "so outrageous that it was omitted from his book when it was first published" which is also a demonstrable lie. The first edition English translation of 1663 has that story. J.G. Cheock is not a reliable person in the slightest. Since Tim has labeled her a Chinese propagandist it's a wonder he continues to defend her and her lies about Fernando Pinto. 

Focusing on the overwhelming evidence, which is the totality of Pinto's description of his shipwreck and imprisonment, is the method I have taken. I have not "hyperfocused on a perceived "gotcha." Unlike Tim I have taken seriously Pinto's journal as a primary source. Tim casts doubt on the reliability of Pinto's journal. However, he contradicts himself by proceeding to list things from that journal as proof that the Lequios Islands are the Philippines. 

Pinto’s observations consistently defy the geography and culture of Ryukyu:

• Horses:
  

  Ryukyu had no significant horseman culture in the 16th century. Luzon, however, had a known tradition of horsemanship, bolstered through Chinese and Japanese trade influence. (Mackie, Philippine Horses, Bureau of Agriculture, Manila)

• Island Size:
  

  The Ryukyu islands collectively measure far too small (~100 leagues in total) to match Pinto’s description. In contrast, Luzon’s coastal circumference approaches 200 leagues, aligning perfectly.

• Trade Riches:
  

  Luzon was a major silver-for-gold hub with thriving regional trade networks. Ryukyu was a relatively minor tributary polity with limited wealth and minimal impact.  🔥"No mines. No gold rush. No Ophir.") 🔥

• Volcanoes:
  

  The Babuyan Islands — historically known as the "Burning Isles" — north of Luzon offer a far better match for the "Island of Fire" than Tokara’s Suwanosejima.

Imagine attempting to pass off an island covering just 27.66 km² (with a modern population of only 48 people) as the grand 200-league island bustling with horsemen and treasures Pinto described. Such a claim strains not only geography but credulity itself. Notably, the Tokara Islands show no historical record of significant gold mining, suggesting that any deposits — if present at all — were either economically insignificant or remained undiscovered.

✅ Conclusion:

The Ryukyu identification collapses completely under geographic, archaeological, and cultural scrutiny. The only location matching Pinto’s description — in size, wealth, population, resources, and trade — is the Philippine archipelago, centered on Luzon and its northern regions.

Oh, now Pinto's observations are accurate? It's only the geographic coordinates which are incorrect while the geographic and cultural observations are correct?

If that is so then where in the Philippines is Pungor and who was its King and Queen? Where is the town of Sipautor? Where is Gundexilau, the city where Pinto was imprisoned in a dungeon? Where is the town of Bintor? Where are the lush, fertile fields in the interior of Luzon growing wheat and rice? And, pray tell, what islands are to the WEST OF LUZON?

This Ryukyu island is situated at twenty-nine degrees latitude. It is two hundred leagues in circumference, sixty in length, and thirty in width. The land in itself is more or less on the order of Japan, a little mountainous in some parts, but it becomes more level in the interior, where many of its lush, fertile fields are irrigated by freshwater streams which produce an endless number of fresh crops, especially wheat and rice. There are mountain ranges where they mine a great quantity of copper which, because it is so plentiful, is so cheap among these people that they load junks full of it to sell in every port of China, Lamau,* Sumbor,’ Chabaqué, Tosa,” Miyako," and Japan, with all the other islands to the south, Sestras, Goto,” Fucanxi, and Pollem. In addition, all this land of the Ryukyus has great quantities of iron, steel, lead, tin, alum, saltpeter, sulphur, honey, beeswax, sugar, and large amounts of ginger which is of a much better quality and far superior to the ginger produced in India. They also have large forests of angely wood,"" jatemar,"' poytao,’ pisu, pine, chestnut, cork oak, oak, and cedar, from which thousands of ships can be made.

To the west, there are five very large islands which have many silver mines, pearls, amber, incense, silk, rosewood, brazilwood, wild eaglewood, and large quantities of pitch," though the silk is somewhat inferior to that of China. The inhabitants of all these islands are like the Chinese, and they dress in clothes made of linen, cotton, and silk, along with some damasks that they import from Nanking. They are overly fond of food, given to the pleasures of the flesh, and have little inclination for bearing arms, which are in short supply, from which it appears that it will be very easy to conquer them. So much so that in the year 1556 there arrived in Malacca a Portuguese in the service of the grand master of Santiago" by the name of Pero Gomes de Almeida,' bringing a magnificent gift and letters from the nautoguim, prince of the island of Tanegashima, for King John III, may his soul rest in peace, which in essence amounted to an appeal for five hundred men to help him and his men conquer this Ryukyu island, in return for which he offered to pay an annual tribute of five thousand quintals of copper and one thousand of brass. Nothing ever came of this embassy because the message was sent to Portugal on board the galleon on which Manuel de Sousa de Sepulveda was shipwrecked.

Pinto, pg. 300, Rebecca Catz, translator

There are NO islands to the west of Luzon! There is only the empty and desolate ocean until you hit mainland Asia.

Tim's retraction, like his video edits, is dishonest. He calls the conflation of Fidalgo and Pinto a mere technicality when it is actually a major fault once more revealing his poor research skills. He brushes off the mix-up as meaningless to his overall thesis despite it having been central enough to his thesis that he wrote an article about it. He says Pinto's journal is geographically unreliable in regards to coordinates and yet he uses the geographic and cultural descriptions in Pinto's journal to prove his case which is cherry-picking of the worst sort. This is not a retraction of a lie but a calculated retreat, one that only digs Tim deeper into the historically and demonstrably false claim that the Lequios Islands are the Philippines. 

The God Culture: Peter Fidalgo is Fernando Pinto

Timothy Jay Schwab who is The God Culture is going to great lengths to prove the Lequios Islands are the Philippines. He is pulling out all the stops. He is even pulling things from out of the air. Take this newly discovered citation from Antonio Galvao.

https://thegodculturephilippines.com/galv%C3%A3o-s-maritime-flow-the-true-geography-of-ophir-lequios-and-japon%C3%AAs/

In this yeere 1545 and in the moneth of June, there went a junk from the citie of Borneo, wherein went a Portugall called Peter Fidalgo, and by contrary windes he was driuen towards the north ; where he founde an island standing in 9 or 10 degrees, that stretched it selfe to 22 degrees of latitude, which is called The Isle of the Lucones, because the inhabitants thereof were so named. It may haue some other name and harborowes, which as yet we know not : it runneth from the north vnto the south-west, and standeth betweene Mindanao and China. They say they sailed along by it 250 leagues, where the land was fruitfull1 and well couered,- and they affirmme, that there they will giue two pezos of sold for one of siluer : and yet it standeth not farre from the countrey of China.

https://archive.org/details/discoveriesofwor00galvrich/page/238/mode/2up

About this passage, Tim claims this is confirmation of Fernado Pinto's shipwreck in the Lequios Islands.

Geographic Confirmation from Pinto (1545) in Galvão's Writings

"...there he found an island standing in 9 or 10 degrees, that stretched itself to 22 degrees... it is called the Isle of the Luçones..."

• These latitudes match the Philippines (Luzon = 12-18° N)

• The described island's size and value match Luzon, not Ryukyu.

• Pinto also notes that Chinese traders brought silver there, further indicating a location near trade-rich Luzon.

There are two problems with this claim. This first problem is this paragraph is about a man named Peter Fidalgo who was blown off course to Luzon in the year 1545. Fernando Pinto shipwrecked in the Lequios Islands in 1544. Shortly after leaving the Lequios Islands, Pinto wrote:

This voyage then I undertook very unwillingly, and parted from Malaca upon a Wednesday, the 9th day of January, in the year 1545

Pinto, page 279

That means he was shipwrecked in 1544 unlike Fidalgo whose journey to Luzon occurred in 1545. And Fidalgo wasn't even shipwrecked, he was blown off course! There is no account of a shipwreck in this passage from Galvao.

The second problem is the direction Fidalgo was traveling.

there went a junk from the citie of Borneo, wherein went a Portugall called Peter Fidalgo, and by contrary windes he was driuen towards the north

Fidalgo was sailing from Borneo heading north while Pinto was sailing from China and heading south. 

Let me post Pinto's account again:

First of all the story follows the healing of the King of Bungo's son. The King of Bungo was a Japanese Feudal Lord who had converted to Catholicism. Pinto then sails to a port in China.

I besought the King of Bungo to give me leave to go back, which he readily granted me, and with much acknowledgement of the curing of his Son he willed a Funce to be made ready for me, furnished with all things necessary, wherein commanded a man of quality, that was attended by twenty of the Kings ser∣vants, with whom I departed one Saturday morning from the City of Fucheo, and the Friday following about Sun-set I arrived at Tanixumaa, where I found my two Comrades, who received me with much joy. Here we continued fifteen days longer, till such time as the Junck was quite ready, and then we set Sail for Liampoo, which is a Sea-port of the Kingdom of China, whereof I have spoken at large heretofore, and where at that time the Portugals tra∣ded. Having continued our voyage with a prosperous wind, it pleased God that we arrived safe at our desired Port, where it is not to be believed how much we were welcome by the Inhabitants of the place.

Pinto, pg. 179

Liampoo is also known as Ningbo and is translated as Ning-po by Rebecca Catz. Pinto leaves Ningbo, China, and is promptly overcome by a storm and shipwrecked. He was absolutely not going north through the Malay Archipelago as Cheock and Timothy Jay Schwab claim. He was headed east out of the Chinese port with the intent of going south.

Thus by the means of this unreasonable desire of gain nine Juncks, which were then in the Port, were in fifteen days ready to set Sail, though to say the truth they were all in such disorder, and so unprovided, that some amongst them had no other Pilots then the Masters themselves, who had but little understanding in Navigation. In this bad order they departed all in company together one Sunday morning, not withstanding that they had the wind, the season, the sea, and all things else contrary, not suffer∣ing themselves to be guided by reason, or the consideration of the dangers which they are subject unto that commit themselves to this Element; For they were so obstinate and so blinded as they would not represent any inconvenience to themselves, and I my self was so infortunate, that I went along with them in one of their Vessels. In this manner they sailed all that same day as it were groping between the Islands and the firm Land, but about midnight there arose in the dark so mighty a Storm, accompanied with such horrible rain, that suffering themselves to be carried at the mercy of the wind, they ran upon the Sands of Gotom, whereof the nine Juncks two only, as it were by miracle, were saved, so that the other seven were lost out of which not so much as one man escaped. This loss was thought to amount unto above three hundred thousand Crowns in commodities, besides the greater, which was of six hundred persons that left their lives there, whereof there were an hundred and forty Portugals, all rich men, and of quality. As for the other two Juncks in one of the which by good hap I was, joyning in comfort together, they followed the course they had begun, until such time as they arrived at the Island of the Lequios;

Pinto, pg. 179-180

He describes the land and says the people rode on horseback. Where is there any account of Filipinos being horsemen?

Now as soon as it was day we perceived by the sight of the Island of fire, and of the Mountain of Taydacano, that the Land where we were was the great Lequio....

...until at last we were espyed by a boy that was keeping of cattel, who as soon as he had dis∣covered us, ran to the next Village, which was some quarter of a league off, for to give notice of it to the inhabitants there; who presently thereupon with the sound of Drums and Cornets assembled all their Neighbours round about them, so that within three or four hours they were a Company of about two hundred men, whereof there were fourteen on horsback.

pg. 180

In her translation of this text Rebecca Catz has this note for Island of fire:

“Fire Island: Cortesão says that Fire Island appears for the first time on Lopo Homem’s map of 1554 and that it corresponds to Nakano-shima or Suwanose-shima, two islands with active volcanoes. The former is described in Webster’s Geographical Dictionary (1966) as a volcanic island 3,215 feet high, Tokara Island, in north Ryukyu Islands, Japan. Suwanose-Shima is not listed. See Cortesão, Suma Oriental, 128–29 n. 2.” 

Fernão Mendes Pinto. “The Travels of Mendes Pinto," Translated by Rebecca Catz, pg. 2,323 epub

Pinto and his companions are tied up and taken to the town of Pungor. They are next taken to a town called Gundexilau and left to rot in a dungeon full of water and leeches. The next day they are brought back to Pungor and given a trial before a judge. They are accused of being pirates but they insist they are merchants. They are not believed and are left to rot in prison for two months.The king then sends a spy pretending to be a merchant to visit Pinto and his men to ask them how they ended up in Lequios. They repeat the same story and the spy reports back to the king. However a Chinese pirate arrives and testifies against Pinto and his men that they are indeed pirates who pose as merchants in order to conquer a country. The king believes the pirate and sentences Pinto and his men to death. 

By providence the man set to deliver this decree and make sure it was carried out lodged with his sister who was a widow. Staying with her was the wife and children of one of the prisoners. When she heard the decree she fainted and then scratched her face so hard that it bled. News of this got around to the women who wrote a letter to the Queen demanding that as an act of charity the foreigners be released. Through a further series of events including a prophetic dream Pinto and his men are released. Following that story is a description of Lequios for the express purpose of inspiring the Portuguese to conquer the island. 

In this manner we departed from Pungor the capital City of the Island of Lequios, of which I will here make a brief relation, to the end that if it shall one day please God to inspire the Portugal Nation, principally for the exaltation and increase of the Catholick faith, and next for the great benefit that may redound thereof, to undertake the Conquest of this Island, they may know where first to begin, as also the commodities of it, and the easiness of this Conquest. We must understand then that this Island of Lequios, scituated in nine and twenty degrees, is two hundred leagues in circuit, threescore in length, and thirty in bredth.

Pinto, pg. 188

https://thegodculturephilippines.blogspot.com/2022/04/the-god-culture-lequios-and-lucoes-are.html

None of that fits the story of Peter Fidalgo. Was he imprisoned for months? Did he meet the King of Pungor? Did he observe horsemen or an island of fire? No part of Pinto's account of his shipwreck in the Lequios Islands is a match for Fidalgo's being blown off course to Luzon. It's a lie plain and simple. A flagrant, blatant, obvious lie. There is no coherent explanation for conflating Fidalgo and Pinto except that Tim is lying, unless he really is that dumb.  With apologies to Hank Williams, no matter how hard he struggles and strives, Tim's equating Lequios and Luzon is all lies. 

Edit: Tim has added an update to his article.

Upon further review and deeper scholarly testing, we acknowledge that Peter Fidalgo and Fernão Mendes Pinto were distinct individuals, based on Galvão’s text. Peter Fidalgo was blown toward Luzon around 1545, while Pinto recorded a separate shipwreck event in what he called the "Lequios" Islands.

However, this correction only strengthens our overall case:

Though he appears to have retracted this obvious lie he has not deleted the original article and he attempts to diminish my criticism by saying "this correction only strengthens our overall case." He is merely conducting damage control and repackaging his thesis that the Lequios Islands and the Philippines are identical by saying Pinto and Fidalgo lead to the same place. They aren't the same. No amount of misreading maps or 16th century sources will ever change that fact. Deeper scholarly testing!? Yeah right, buddy! Who is he trying to fool?

The God Culture: Flip Flopping Claims About Greek Armor In Mindanao

Way back in 2019 Timothy Jay Schwab who is The God Culture published a video that included a claim about anceint Greek armour being unearthed in Mindanao. Oddly enough that claim did not show up in his book The Search For King Solomon's Treasure. The reason why it was omitted has now been revealed by Tim. 

Lost Isles of Gold LIVE Series - Part 12: Hebrew in the Philippines? 

@kkruz Just saw this history. Ancient Greek Armour found in Mindanao. Grabe indeed.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqJ_rPHfSyU

@TheGodCulture We covered that long ago even visiting the hotel museum which housed it. Though the find seems authentic, there has been little done to preserve the find and report it properly unfortunately. Thus, we dropped it from our book, and did not cover it any further. We still get ridiculed even though we did the right things. That does not mean it is not true as it may well be as it certainly makes sense. It just means those who discovered it did not keep their records opening the find up to scrutiny. Scrutiny is not disproof, and many times proves to be mere scoffing, but that is the method of academia today, which has become a Pharisee realm in thinking. 

Also, the channel that first reported this find, has proven to lead in propaganda to China and Russia as the supreme authority to the Philippines, which is just a propaganda vlog. They take the finding of Chinese pottery in ancient times to mean China came to the Philippines, when Chinese records document Filipinos and Austronesians arriving there and nto the other way around. They even take the Japtheth's son Javan who is well documented as the founder of Greece, or Ioanan (Iwan or Javan, even named for him), as founding China which is in Shem's territory, not Japheth's. Careful with that group they backload to China in propaganda. Yah Bless.

A commenter alerted Tim to the original video posted by Kasaysayan Hunters about Greek armor being found in Mindanao. Tim says he covered that video long ago but dropped the claim from his book because "there has been little done to preserve the find and report it properly" and  "those who discovered it did not keep their records opening the find up to scrutiny." 

That is kind of an odd sentence. Tim is lamenting both that records were not properly kept and that as a result the find has been opened up to scrutiny. Does that mean if records were kept the armor would not be open to scrutiny? What exactly is the problem with "opening up the find to scrutiny?" 

Tim doesn't seem to think much of academic vetting, writing "scrutiny is not disproof and many times proves to be mere scoffing."  Is Tim really unaware of the magnitude of what it would mean to find actual genuine ancient Greek armor in the Philippines? That would change everything we know about world history. Such a claim must be scrutinized to the utmost to ensure it is not a hoax. But Tim shrugs that off as "Pharisee thinking." According to Tim, the proper way to do things is to make a claim and accuse anyone who dares examine it of committing slander, defamation, and libel.

He goes on to say "That does not mean it is not true as it may well be as it certainly makes sense" which undoubtedly means he believes the armor is genuine. After all, he teaches that Greeks were trading with the Philippines by circumnavigating Africa for nearly a thousand years between 800 B.C. and the beginning of current era. He needs this find to be true. 

Tim also says, "We still get ridiculed even though we did the right things." What are those right things? Dropping it from the book because he could not verify it? Yet the claim is still embedded in TWO VIDEOS which he has not deleted or edited. Those videos can be viewed here and here. The first is in English and the second is in Tagalog. Is he going to do the "right thing" and delete or edit those videos in which he unambiguously decalres this armor to be "indisputiably Greek?"

100 Clues #2: Philippines Is The Ancient Land of Gold: Gold Found - Ophir, Sheba, Tarshish. Edited.                       

13:27 I know someone's thinking if the Greeks came to the Philippines there would have to be archaeology to prove it. I mean come on. Oh, so glad you asked.

When we visited Butuan, Philippines in May we were actually able to see this Greek armor which was found in 2018 in the Philippines. The thing is these are indisputably Greek from the symbols and the structure and they are dated all the way back to 800 B.C. up to about 480 B.C. 

So, here we go, full circle. History, a map and, archeology all agree to support this, not as speculation, but as fact. Proven.

Until Tim deletes or edits these videos it must be assumed he still believes this armor is "indisputably Greek" and is proof that "Greeks came to the Philippines." Dropping it from his book is a mere diversion while this claim remains on his Youtube channel. 

After distancing himself from the fraudulent ancient Greek armor Tim disavows the channel from which he got this claim, Kasaysayn Hunters, calling it "a propaganda vlog."

Also, the channel that first reported this find, has proven to lead in propaganda to China and Russia as the supreme authority to the Philippines, which is just a propaganda vlog. 

Is Tim aware the owner of this channel is J.G. Cheock?

https://www.youtube.com/@KasaysayanHunters

Tim has praised this woman in his book The Search For King Solomon's Treausre and in a recent article on his website. 

As we wanted to shout out with a plug to a local Filipino author, we maintained the secondary source, because it remained accurate.

The local author was preferred by our authors because she uncovered that truth, and deserved credit, which we continue to acknowledge.

https://thegodculturephilippines.blogspot.com/2025/04/the-god-culture-understanding-pintos.html

These comments were posted on April 13th, 2025 which as of now is only 15 days ago. His comments disparaging J.G. Cheock and Kasaysayan Hunters were posted 3 weeks ago!

Now, she is a purveyor of propaganda? Will he completely disavow her and remove all reference to her from his book and website? Will he stop relying on her fallacious statements about Fernando Pinto's journal and start citing the actual journal instead? Probably not. Likely he will say, "she is right about Pinto but wrong about everything else and that doesn't matter because truth is truth" or some such ad hoc nonsense. 

Tim says he stills gets ridiculed over this claim which is more than likely a reference to an article I wrote back in 2020 tearing this laughable "archaeological find" apart. Tim later edited his original video adding text to the slide to indicate that confirmation of the find was pending. Here is the original slide compared to the edited version.

original

edit

I have referred to this as a dishonestly edited video because while Tim changed the slide, he did not change the audio. The slide says "confirmation pending" while the audio says, "The thing is these are indisputably Greek from the symbols and the structure and they are dated all the way back to 800 B.C. up to about 480 B.C." and "History, a map and, archeology all agree to support this, not as speculation, but as fact. Proven." This armor cannot both be genuine and yet have its "confirmation pending." Both claims cancel each other out. Hence the dishonesty.

So, what's the point of all this? Well, this only serves to highlight Tim's habit of cherry-picking sources and his ever changing claims. At one time Tim claimed this was genuine Greek armor. Then Tim said confirmation was pending. Then he says the dropped the claim altogether because the find was not properly recorded. Then he calls Kasaysayan Hunters a propaganda vlog despite heaping praise on J.G. Cheock shortly after making that statement. His behavior resembles a single individual retroactively covering tracks rather than a structured academic process of checks and balances. It's madness showing that Timothy Jay Schwab is no real researcher and only reinforces suspicion that there is no God Culture research team. 

The God Culture: ChatGPT Analyzes TGC's Claim Tagalog Is Derived From Hebrew

In his books and videos Timothy Jay Schwab who is The God Culture claims that Tagalog is etymologically rooted in Hebrew. He cites Padre Chirino, a Jesuit historian, and Stephen Levinsohn, a linguist as proof of his claim.

Lost Isles of Gold LIVE Series - Part 12: Hebrew in the Philippines?

6:43 Understand that, um, when, uh, Padre Chirino was writing about the Philippines, he said by the way that every Filipino he encountered could read and write. 100% literacy. 100%. So, this has been a mislabeled, misconstrued nation all along by the Jesuits. But Padre Chino said it, the Taglog language has the mystery and obscurities of the Hebrew language. What? Where did that come from? I'll tell you where it came from because we've now studied this out. We agree with him there are the mysteries and obscurities of the Hebrew language here. There are direct Hebrew words and it is indisputable at least for some. 

There was a, uh, a Jewish dude that came here named Steven Levinsohn, uh, conducting a linguist basically, uh, training and at the end of the workshop, this is the quote from that: "one mother tongue translator remarked that had he known of the parallels between Philippine languages and Biblical Hebrew he would have found the learning of the latter much easier. His remark led me to raise the matter with a couple of Seminary professors who teach Hebrew in Manila." See, they're saying even in modern times that even modern Tagalog has elements of Hebrew within and that if you understood that before you were teaching Hebrew to a Tagalog speaking person that they would understand Hebrew better because they would realize that the synergy between Hebrew and Tagalog is very similar. Very similar. There's a lot and there's a lot of words that you share even, even in definition.

I have previously critiqued this claim noting that it is a grave distortion of the sources Tim uses. Tim believes my critique is defamatory and libelous. So, why not ask ChatGPT about the matter?

I uploaded Stephen Levinsohn's PDF and what Chirino says about Tagalog and Hebrew then asked for an analysis. Then I uploaded Tim's claim and asked for a comparative analysis. Since Tim mentions a 100% literacy rate I also had to upload information about that. The conclusion is as follows:

The video misuses both sources to promote a fringe theory lacking linguistic rigor, historical support, or internal consistency.

The Lost Isles of Gold video exaggerates, misinterprets, and blurs categories—rhetorical praise becomes statistical fact, typological similarity becomes descent, admiration becomes conspiracy. 

The chat is posted below and can be read here.

contextualisedhebrewteaching.pdf

PDF

analyze that PDF and the following from Jesuit Padre Chirino: There is no single or general language of the Filipinas extending throughout the islands; but all of them, though there are many and different tongues, are so much alike that they may be learned and spoken in a short time. Consequently if one is learned, all are almost known. They are to each other like the Tuscan, Lombard, and Sicilian dialects of Italia, or the Castilian, Portuguese, and Galician in Espafia. Only the language of the Negrillos is very different from the rest, as, in Espafia, is the Vizcayan [i.e., Basque]. There is not a different language for each of the islands, because some of them - as, for example, Manila, and even Panai, which is more than four hundred leguas smaller - contain several languages; and there are languages each of which prevails in several islands. In the island of Manila alone, there are six different tongues; in Panai, two; in some others, but one. The languages most used, and most widely spread, are the Tagal and the Bisayan; and in some regions of the Pintados another tongue is also prevalent, called Harayan. The Tagal embraces the greater part of the coast and interior of the islands of Manila, Mindoro, Luban, and some others. Bisaya is in use through all the islands of the Pintados, although in some of the villages therein the Harayan is spoken. Of all these languages, it was the Tagal which most pleased me and which I most admired. As I told the first bishop, and, afterwards, other persons of dignity in the islands and in Europe, I found in this language four qualities of the four greatest languages of the world, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and Spanish: it has the abstruseness and obscurity of the Hebrew; the articles and distinctions in proper as well as in common nouns, of the Greek; the fulness and elegance of the Latin; and the refinement, polish, and courtesy of the Spanish. Examples of all these characteristics may be seen in the " Ave Maria" done into Tagal; and, as that is a short prayer, and more easily understood than the others, I will place it here with its explanation in our vernacular, and with word-forword equivalents. In this way may be seen the idioms and characteristic expressions of this language which will please some readers, and furnish information, both useful and curious.

ChatGPT said:

Both Padre Chirino’s remarks and Stephen Levinsohn’s linguistic analysis converge on a fascinating point: the structural similarities between Philippine languages and Biblical Hebrew, particularly in syntax and verbal system, offer a powerful insight for translation and language education. Let’s analyze this interaction in three layers—linguistic typology, cultural-linguistic reflection, and practical implications:

---

1. Linguistic Typology: Structural Parallels

Padre Chirino’s 1604 observation draws a parallel between Philippine languages and Romance dialects, noting their mutual intelligibility and shared features. He distinguishes between the general linguistic continuum of the lowland Filipinos and the significantly different language of the Negrillos (Aeta). His metaphor comparing Tagalog and Visayan to Tuscan and Sicilian implies that the differences among Philippine languages are dialectal rather than fundamental.

This harmonizes with Levinsohn’s modern linguistic view:

• Philippine languages and Biblical Hebrew are VS/VO, aspect-prominent, and pro-drop languages.

  • VS (Verb-Subject) order is common in narratives.

  • Aspect, not tense, governs the verb system.

  • Subject pronouns are often omitted when verb morphology suffices.

These shared features suggest that Filipino translators can intuitively grasp Hebrew syntax far better than English speakers can. For example, a Filipino would naturally understand Hebrew’s verb-subject order and aspectual focus without needing to "translate" it into English grammar logic.

---

2. Cultural-Linguistic Reflection: The Prestige of Tagalog

Chirino praises Tagalog for possessing the:

• Mystery of Hebrew

• Precision of Greek

• Elegance of Latin

• Refinement of Spanish

Though hyperbolic in tone, this reflects genuine linguistic richness—agglutinative morphology, flexible word order, particles for focus and topic, and politeness levels. Tagalog’s capacity for nuance and refinement may have reminded Jesuit missionaries of classical languages used in theology and diplomacy.

Levinsohn, from a linguist’s perspective, supports this by showing how Filipino languages mark focus, topic, and verb aspect—all key elements in understanding Biblical Hebrew.

---

3. Practical Implications: Biblical Hebrew Teaching

Levinsohn criticizes the seminary approach in the Philippines for relying on European Hebrew grammars like Weingreen's, which assume English or German grammar as the baseline. This approach burdens Filipino students with grammatical frameworks foreign to their native linguistic intuition.

Instead, he recommends:

• Teaching Hebrew from a comparative perspective that highlights similarities to local languages.

• Avoiding tense-based categories in favor of aspectual analysis.

• Acknowledging pro-drop patterns familiar to Filipino students.

Padre Chirino, without the benefit of modern linguistics, already grasped that learning Tagalog (or Visayan) enabled broader communication across the archipelago. Levinsohn’s work shows that this linguistic adaptability is mirrored in Biblical Hebrew, making Filipino MTTs uniquely positioned to master it if taught contextually.

---

Summary Comparison

Feature	Padre Chirino (1604)	Stephen Levinsohn (2010)
View of Philippine tongues	Dialectal continuum; mutually intelligible	Shared linguistic typology: VS/VO, aspect, pro-drop
Prestige of Tagalog	Comparable to Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Spanish	Structurally similar to Hebrew in syntax and aspect
Implication for teaching	Admiration and linguistic depth	Contextual Hebrew instruction tailored to Filipinos

---

Would you like a write-up formatted for publication or blog, integrating these insights?

You said:

now analyze and compare the following to your analysis of Levinsohn and Chirino: Lost Isles of Gold LIVE Series - Part 12: Hebrew in the Philippines? 6:43 Understand that, um, when, uh, Padre Chirino was writing about the Philippines, he said by the way that every Filipino he encountered could read and write. 100% literacy. 100%. So, this has been a mislabeled, misconstrued nation all along by the Jesuits. But Padre Chino said it, the Taglog language has the mystery and obscurities of the Hebrew language. What? Where did that come from? I'll tell you where it came from because we've now studied this out. We agree with him there are the mysteries and obscurities of the Hebrew language here. There are direct Hebrew words and it is indisputable at least for some. There was a, uh, a Jewish dude that came here named Steven Levinsohn, uh, conducting a linguist basically, uh, training and at the end of the workshop, this is the quote from that: "one mother tongue translator remarked that had he known of the parallels between Philippine languages and Biblical Hebrew he would have found the learning of the latter much easier. His remark led me to raise the matter with a couple of Seminary professors who teach Hebrew in Manila." See, they're saying even in modern times that even modern Tagalog has elements of Hebrew within and that if you understood that before you were teaching Hebrew to a Tagalog speaking person that they would understand Hebrew better because they would realize that the synergy between Hebrew and Tagalog is very similar. Very similar. There's a lot and there's a lot of words that you share even, even in definition.

ChatGPT said:

The quote from the Lost Isles of Gold LIVE Series - Part 12: Hebrew in the Philippines? reflects a common pattern in pseudo-historical and pseudo-linguistic discourse: taking legitimate scholarly observations and stretching them into unwarranted conclusions. Let's break this down and compare it critically to both Stephen Levinsohn’s analysis and Padre Chirino’s historical account.

---

⚖️ Comparison and Analysis

🔹 1. Levinsohn's Linguistic Approach vs. "Lost Isles" Claims

Aspect	Levinsohn	Lost Isles of Gold (Timothy Schwab / The God Culture)
Focus	Linguistic typology: syntax, verb aspect, pronoun usage	Alleged Hebrew origin or influence in Tagalog
Methodology	Comparative linguistics with concrete grammatical analysis	Speculative interpretation of historical and linguistic data
Conclusion	Similarities in structure help teach Hebrew more effectively to Filipinos	Similarities "prove" Tagalog has Hebrew origin or is derived from Hebrew

Analysis:

• Levinsohn never claims Hebrew influenced or is ancestral to Tagalog. He simply notes shared typological features, common among many unrelated languages.

• The Lost Isles series conflates structural similarity with direct etymological descent or identity, which is a logical fallacy. Many unrelated languages can share features due to typological convergence, not shared origin.

---

🔹 2. Chirino’s Praise of Tagalog vs. Misuse in the Video

Aspect	Chirino (1604)	Lost Isles Misuse
Literacy Claim	Does not claim 100% literacy	Misrepresents Chirino as saying every Filipino could read/write
Praise for Tagalog	Notes its richness and likens it to Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Spanish	Claims this means Tagalog contains Hebrew or is derived from it
Context	Historical admiration for the language’s elegance and expressive depth	Used to promote a fringe theory of Hebrew presence in precolonial Philippines

Analysis:

• Chirino compares Tagalog's grammatical features and expressiveness to classical languages metaphorically, not genetically.

• He does not suggest Tagalog is Hebrew or that it descended from it. He also does not claim 100% literacy—this is fabricated.

---

🔹 3. Levinsohn Quoted in the Video: Accurate or Misleading?

The quote about a Filipino translator finding Hebrew easier if its similarities to local languages were emphasized is accurate—but its interpretation is not.

✅ Accurate: Levinsohn reports that a Filipino MTT said Hebrew would have been easier to learn had he been taught about linguistic parallels earlier.

❌ Misleading interpretation: The video spins this to claim that modern Tagalog has Hebrew elementswithin it—suggesting lexical or genetic relationship, which Levinsohn never claims.

Levinsohn’s point is that teaching should be contextualized linguistically, not that Tagalog is derived from Hebrew.

---

🧠 Summary: Linguistic Typology ≠ Language Descent

Feature	Legitimate (Levinsohn & Chirino)	Misuse (Lost Isles Series)
Structural similarities	Yes: VS/VO word order, aspect-prominence, pro-drop	Exaggerated into ancestral or borrowed relationship
Hebrew in the Philippines	No evidence of presence or influence	Assumed based on structural/lexical coincidences
Use of historical sources	Careful and contextual	Misquoted, misrepresented, and decontextualized
Linguistic method	Typological comparison	Pseudo-linguistics and cherry-picking

---

🔍 Verdict

The Lost Isles of Gold video misrepresents both Padre Chirino’s historical praise and Levinsohn’s typological analysis, stretching them to support a baseless theory that Tagalog is related to Hebrew.

If you'd like, I can write a more formal article or a rebuttal piece summarizing this comparison. Would you like that?

You said:

The claim about 100% literacy from Chirino is taken from this quote: "“So accustomed are all these islanders to writing and reading that there is scarcely a man, and much less a woman, who cannot read and write in letters proper to the island of Manila, very different from those of China, Japan, or India.” –Pedro Chirino" revise your analyze accordingly. 

ChatGPT said:

Thank you for the clarification and the quote. That changes the analysis regarding literacy slightly but still exposes a misuse of Chirino in the Lost Isles of Gold video. Let's revise the analysis accordingly while maintaining a critical comparison between Stephen Levinsohn, Padre Chirino, and the claims made in the Lost Isles of Gold LIVE Series - Part 12: Hebrew in the Philippines?*

---

🔍 Revised Analysis and Comparison

🔹 1. Pedro Chirino’s Account (1604): Language & Literacy

✅ What Chirino Actually Says:

“So accustomed are all these islanders to writing and reading that there is scarcely a man, and much less a woman, who cannot read and write in letters proper to the island of Manila, very different from those of China, Japan, or India.” –Pedro Chirino

This is extraordinary praise for native literacy in pre-Hispanic Manila, particularly in Baybayin, the indigenous script. But note:

• He says “scarcely a man... who cannot read and write”—this is hyperbolic admiration, not a literal claim of 100% literacy.

• The statement is region-specific (the island of Manila), not about the entire archipelago.

• His focus is on the existence of a native script and widespread use, not Hebrew elements or foreign linguistic ancestry.

❌ How It’s Misused in the Video:

"Every Filipino he encountered could read and write. 100% literacy. 100%."

This is an exaggeration:

• “Scarcely a man…” ≠ 100% literacy

• Chirino was impressed by widespread literacy relative to European expectations at the time, not declaring a scientifically verified literacy rate.

• The quote is selectively used to support a narrative that Filipino civilization was not only advanced (true) but also secretly Hebrew (not true).

---

🔹 2. Chirino’s Praise of Tagalog vs. Video's Misinterpretation

Chirino wrote:

“I found in [Tagalog] four qualities of the four greatest languages of the world—Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and Spanish…”

Chirino’s intention was clearly rhetorical and comparative, not genealogical. He saw Tagalog as:

• Obscure like Hebrew (i.e., difficult to master)

• Structured like Greek (articles and noun types)

• Elegant like Latin

• Refined like Spanish

He was praising the expressive and grammatical complexity of Tagalog—not claiming that it descended from Hebrewor contained Hebrew vocabulary.

❌ The Video’s Claim:

“Tagalog has the mystery and obscurities of the Hebrew language... There are direct Hebrew words and it is indisputable…”

This claim:

• Misunderstands "mystery" and "obscurity" as linguistic evidence, rather than poetic description.

• Offers no actual linguistic data or analysis to prove a shared vocabulary or etymological connection.

• Ignores historical linguistics and the Austronesian roots of Philippine languages.

---

🔹 3. Stephen Levinsohn vs. the Video’s Misrepresentation

✅ What Levinsohn Actually Says:

• Filipino languages and Biblical Hebrew are structurally similar:

  • Both are VS/VO (verb-subject or verb-object)

  • Both are aspect-prominent (focus on verb aspect, not tense)

  • Both are pro-drop (omit pronouns when unnecessary)

These features are shared due to typological convergence, not common descent.

❌ How the Video Twists This:

“See, they're saying... even modern Tagalog has elements of Hebrew within…”

This is:

• A misinterpretation of Levinsohn’s observations.

• An unsupported leap from typological similarity to historical or genetic relationship.

• Devoid of phonological, morphological, or lexical comparisons needed for legitimate historical linguistics.

---

🧠 Summary Table

Category	Padre Chirino	Stephen Levinsohn	Lost Isles of Gold (Part 12)
View of Tagalog	Rhetorical comparison to major classical languages	Structural typological similarity to Biblical Hebrew	Tagalog has direct Hebrew influence
Literacy	Widespread literacy noted, particularly in Manila using native script	Not discussed	Inflated to 100% literacy nationwide
Hebrew Connection	Hebrew used metaphorically (complex, obscure)	Typological similarity only	Claims shared words, Hebrew origin
Scholarly Grounding	17th-century missionary documentation	Linguistic analysis based on typology	Pseudo-linguistic speculation and cherry-picking
Conclusion	Tagalog is expressive and sophisticated	Teaching Hebrew can be contextualized using Filipino language structures	Hebrew was secretly present in the Philippines

---

🧾 Final Verdict

• Chirino praised Tagalog but made no claim that it was Hebrew or descended from Hebrew.

• Levinsohn demonstrated typological similarities useful for teaching, not historical linkage.

• The video misuses both sources to promote a fringe theory lacking linguistic rigor, historical support, or internal consistency.

Would you like this as a formal written rebuttal or blog-style post?

You said:

you said the 100% claim is exaggerated. Tim's claim also comes from the preface of The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII. The editors write: "A chapter is assigned to the native alphabet and mode of writing. All, women as well as men, write and read; and they have already learned to do so in the Spanish language as well as in their own."

ChatGPT said:

Thanks for the clarification—you're absolutely right to raise this point. Let's revise and sharpen the analysis further with the added context from the The Philippine Islands, 1493–1898: Volume XII preface.

---

🧠 Revised Analysis with Expanded Literacy Context

📜 Source: The Philippine Islands, 1493–1898, Volume XII (Preface)

“A chapter is assigned to the native alphabet and mode of writing. All, women as well as men, write and read; and they have already learned to do so in the Spanish language as well as in their own.”

This editorial summary of Chirino’s writings does indeed echo the Jesuit’s enthusiasm for widespread literacy, particularly among Tagalogs in and around Manila.

---

⚖️ Clarifying the Literacy Claim

✅ What the Source Suggests

• Widespread literacy in native script (Baybayin) was observed and praised by Chirino.

• Both men and women were literate—remarkable for the early 1600s, especially in global comparison.

• Some natives had already learned to read and write in Spanish, in addition to their native language.

❗However...

• The phrase “All... write and read” in the preface is a summary statement, likely rhetorical or idealized.

• It does not constitute modern statistical literacy data. No formal census or universal schooling system existed then.

• It primarily reflects conditions in and around Spanish-controlled areas like Manila, not the entire archipelago.

---

❌ The Problem with the “100% Literacy” Claim in Lost Isles of Gold

“Every Filipino he encountered could read and write. 100% literacy. 100%.”

This is still an overreach, even if based on enthusiastic early Spanish descriptions. Here's why:

Issue	Why It’s Problematic
Universal Claim	The original quote reflects elite or coastal norms; it doesn’t account for rural, mountainous, or uncontacted groups.
Historical Hyperbole	Jesuit reports often framed Filipino literacy as a marvel to emphasize their civilizing mission or the readiness of natives to be Christianized.
Misrepresentation of Genre	A historical document’s preface or missionary praise is not equivalent to empirical evidence or census data.

This doesn’t mean literacy wasn’t widespread—it was, impressively so—but claiming 100% accuracy based on a rhetorical flourish is misleading.

---

🔄 Updated Summary Table (With Literacy Clarification)

Category	Padre Chirino / Vol. XII Preface	Stephen Levinsohn	Lost Isles of Gold (Part 12)
View of Tagalog	Sophisticated, poetic, grammatically rich	Typologically similar to Hebrew in syntax and aspect	Contains Hebrew or is descended from Hebrew
Literacy Claim	Praises near-universal literacy in Spanish Manila area	Not addressed	"100% literacy"—based on rhetorical summary, overstated as statistical fact
Hebrew Connection	Compares abstract qualities of Tagalog to Hebrew	Notes structural (not genetic) similarities	Argues shared vocabulary and ancestry
Methodology	Historical missionary account	Modern linguistic typology	Pseudo-linguistic speculation
Conclusion	Tagalog is elegant and widely written	Filipino languages help students intuit Hebrew structure	Philippines were secretly Hebrew-speaking

---

✅ What We Can Say Honestly and Accurately

• The Philippines had remarkably high literacy, especially in native script before and during early Spanish contact.

• Jesuit accounts like Chirino’s testify to this and are credible within historical context.

• Chirino’s linguistic praise of Tagalog is a tribute to its expressive power, not an etymological claim.

• Levinsohn offers a rigorous linguistic analysis that helps translation, not identity theories.

• The Lost Isles of Gold video exaggerates, misinterprets, and blurs categories—rhetorical praise becomes statistical fact, typological similarity becomes descent, admiration becomes conspiracy.

---

Would you like a cleaned-up version of this analysis for use in an article or rebuttal?