Timothy Jay Schwab who is The God Culture is writing a new book about the Philippines. Or maybe he is going to update his book The Search For King Solomon's Treasure. Either way, something deeply flawed this way comes from the computer of Timothy Jay Schwab. If he does have a research team they will need to step up their game and stop manipulating their sources. Of course, picking through his obvious lies makes it so much easier to critique Tim.
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| https://thegodculturephilippines.com/maniolas-lequios-luzon----and-the-golden-isles-unveiled/ |
The Misunderstood Geography of Ptolemy.
Modern scholarship often stumbles when interpreting Ptolemy’s maps, offering colonial-era opinions without engaging the corrections made by Magellan, Pigafetta, or even Columbus. Few realize that Ptolemy’s knowledge ended east of India — he never mapped the Philippines, as confirmed by Magellan himself. Instead, he skipped directly to regions like Taprobane (which classical sources and maps correctly equate with Sumatra, not Sri Lanka) and Maniolas, a clear reference to Manila.
The result? A cartographic void filled with guesses — while Magellan and other explorers offered the course correction. Yet academia, in Colonial British propaganda, continues to anchor itself to the South and West, ignoring the obvious: the Region of Gold was the Philippines. It still is.
We introduce this correction here — but the full breakdown comes in upcoming blogs. This is not our position but that will be forthcoming, and overwhelming.
This blog centers on one of them — Lequios — and its undeniable Philippine identity. While other legendary places like Maniolas and Chryse are mentioned in the same breath, we will not unpack those positions here. That evidence, vast and overwhelming, will be addressed in a dedicated series and one of our next books coming soon.
Maniolas was Manila — not metaphorically, but directly and cartographically, as many scholars, maps, and colonial-era sources have affirmed. [a plethera of sources say so, we will cover these, not in this article]
Maniolas on Ptolemy's world map is Manila says Tim. That is true because other people said it is true. Never mind the fact that it is impossible a second century map could reference a city founded in 1571. It is true that some people did speculate that Maniolas and Manila are related but that does not make it so. Connecting a second century map detail and a city founded in the 16th century is the height of absurdity.
Here is what Tim writes concerning Domingo Fernández Navarrete's comments on Maniolas.
In the late 17th century, in the midst of Jesuit propaganda, a high-ranking Spanish Dominican Archbishop, theologian, writer, and missionary named Domingo Fernández Navarrete dared to write what others would not: that the islands known as Ptolemy's Maniolas are none other than Luzon and the Philippines, and that the Biblical lands of Ophir, Tarshish, and Havilah are found in these same islands. Another Navarrete, Martín Fernández de Navarrete (1765–1844), Spanish naval officer and historian, also placed Lequios at 21 degrees North (Philippine waters) a couple of centuries later. The ancient names of the bifurcated isle of Luzon were clearly Lequios (North) and Maniolas (Manila/South).
✒️ Literal Translation & Analysis:
🗺️ Page 429–430
"Lib. 1, p.2, prueba con Tholomeo, que las Islas Philipinas eran las Maniolas, por la semejanza grande de este nombre, con el nombre Manila..."Translation:“Book 1, page 2, proves with Ptolemy that the Philippine Islands are the Maniolas, due to the strong similarity of that name with Manila…”🔍 This is a direct identification of Ptolemy’s “Maniolas” with the city of Manila and its surrounding isles. Navarrete points out what modern scholars pretend not to see: linguistic, geographic, and historical continuity.
“...si Manila fuera, o hubiera sido en algún tiempo nombre de aquella isla…”Analysis:He acknowledges that if Manila was a name for the island as a whole (as several maps indicate), or derived from it, then Ptolemy's identification makes perfect sense — because it is the same region. He was clearly aware of Magellan's corrections of Ptolemy, as modern scholars should be. He also emphasizes the Tagalog root names and the logic of these derivations. This utterly obliterates modern denials that Maniolas = Manila = Luzon.Navarrete also affirms the ships fashioned without nails fitting Ptolemy's account of Maniola and that magnetic lodestone (magnetite) was very abundant throughout the Philippines which remains so today according to mining reports and the National Museum of the Philippines.
Indeed, he doubts the legend that the lodestone could literally stop a ship which we do as well. However, the legend remained there all along regardless. Magnetic anomalies however, are factual around the Philippine waters and likely, it is the Maniola shoals that spawned such legend which is why we see them called magnetic in Behaim's 1492 inscription next to Mindanao.
Yes, maps affirm Maniola as a name for Luzon or a portion. More on that soon. All affirm that is what Ptolemy meant all along when he labeled Maniola which Magellan, Behaim, Columbus and others adjust correcting Ptolemy's Golden Isles (NONE are Peninsulas) to the Philippines.
This is wrong. First of all it should be noted, and Tim does not note this, that Navarrete is citing Father Fransisco Colin.
After having finished these drafts, I accidentally found the history that the very Reverend Father Francisco Colín wrote about the progress, Christianities, and labors of his Sacred Family of the Company of Jesus in the Philippine Islands, and since I lived among them, I had a particular knowledge of this great man, and of his many talents, which I do not praise so as not to exaggerate them, as Tacitus said regarding Agricola: "His integrity and abstinence, in such a man, would have been injured by virtues."
Second of all, these:
"Lib. 1, p.2, prueba con Tholomeo, que las Islas Philipinas eran las Maniolas, por la semejanza grande de este nombre, con el nombre Manila..."
“...si Manila fuera, o hubiera sido en algún tiempo nombre de aquella isla…”
are half quotes. Here is the full quote in English. The bolded text is what Tim leaves on the cutting room floor.
2 Lib. 1, p. 2, proves with Ptolemy that the Philippine Islands are the Maniolas, due to the great resemblance of this name to the name Manila;
but the foundation is so flimsy that it cannot even generate probability: if Manila had ever been the name of that Island, or of any other in that Archipelago, that opinion could still be tolerated; but it being certain that it is a name imposed for the site of the City, because it is mostly swampy and muddy land, although it is now otherwise, which the Tagalog calls Mainila, as I already wrote in treatise 1, c. 1, section 1, it follows that no inference can be drawn from that name for the purpose he intends.
While Colin supposed Ptolemy's Maniolas was Manila, Navarrete says "the foundation is so flimsy that is cannot even generate probability." Ptolemy's own text links Maniolae not with a city or magnets but with cannibals!
There are said to be other islands here adjoining, ten in number, called Maniolae, from which they say that boats, in which there are nails, are kept away, lest at any time the magnetic stone which is found near these islands should draw them to destruction. For this reason they say that these boats are drawn up on the shore and that they are strengthened with beams of wood. They also say that these islands are occupied by cannibals called Manioli. There are means of approach from these islands to the mainland.
Navarrete does not agree with Colin and is of no use to Tim. Yet for some reason Tim has decided to selectively edit the text to appear that he does. Why? Is this obvious nonsense, that a city founded in the 16th century shows up on a 2nd century map bolstered by a manipulated citation from Navarrete, going to make it into Tim's new book? I certainly hope so. Because if it does, it will serve as yet another glaring example of his deeply flawed and dishonest methodology.
In this next quote Tim claims Navarrete affirms Ophir, Tarshish, and Havilah founded the Philippines.
🗺️ Page 430–431
“En el cap. 4.pagin.16. trata de los Fundadores, o Pobladores de aquellas Islas,y Archipielago, y dize fue Tharfis, hijo de lauan, y Ophir, y Heuilath de la India,de que fe trata en el capit. 10. del Genef. Grande antiguedad de morado-res dà aquella tierra. En auer fido faci-lifsimo poblaríe todas aquellas Islas,por eftar algunas cercanífsimas a la tierra Continente, para mi no tiene duda.”Translation:“In chapter 4, page 16, it deals with the Founders or Settlers of those Islands and Archipelago, and it is said that it was Tharsis, son of Javan, and Ophir, and Havilah of India, of whom it is dealt with in chapter 10 of Genesis. Great antiquity of inhabitants of that land. In succession it would be very easy to populate all those Islands, since some of them are very close to the Continent, for me there is no doubt.”🔍 Navarrete is here stating plainly: the ancient biblical regions of Tarshish, Ophir, and Havilah were in the Philippines and he believes without doubt the Philippines fit that identity best. He uses Genesis 10, which lists descendants of Noah spreading into those regions, to anchor the idea that these islands were peopled in antiquity from that biblical dispersion.
This is once more wrong. It must be remembered that Navarrete is quoting Fr. Colin. Colin does not say Ophir founded the Philippines.
Although these are islands, it won't be necessary to strain our understanding, speculating (as Saint Augustine and other authors do regarding other islands and the Americas) about how and from where people and animals came to them. Because if some of these were at some point a continent after the flood, then people and animals could have remained there since that time. And if they have always been islands, the proximity of some to others, and of some of them to the mainland of Asia—from where the propagation of the human lineage and the populating by Noah's descendants began—is sufficient for some of them to have been able to come and populate these parts. And that this was indeed the case, and the principal colonizer of these Archipelagos was Tarshish, son of Javan, with his brothers—just as Ophir and Havilah were for India—is founded in the tenth chapter of Genesis, which deals with the dispersion of peoples and the populating of lands, as we have established in detail elsewhere.
Navarette writes:
the Founders or Settlers of those Islands and Archipelago, and it is said that it was Tharsis, son of Javan, and Ophir, and Havilah of India,
Clearly Tarshish founded the archipelago, the Philippines, while Ophir and Havilah founded India. That is how both texts groups them. Don't forget Tim previously manipulated this same quote from Colin.
📖 3. The Biblical Bombshell: Philippines as Ophir and Tarshish
Perhaps most stunning, Colin writes:
“Y el principal Poblador de estos Archipielagos fuese Tharsis, hijo de Javan... como lo fueron Ophir, y Hevilath…”(Labor Evangelica, p. 16)📌 Translation:"And the principal settlers of these archipelagos was Tarshish, son of Javan... just as were Ophir and Havilah..."Citing Genesis 10, Colin aligns the early Philippine settlers with the biblical sons of Javan, declaring the islands the biblical lands of gold.
He speaks not hypothetically — but with scriptural and ethnographic confidence.
Compare the original Spanish to Tim's edit.
Y que con efecto fuesse assi, y el principal Poblador de estos Archipiélagos fuesse Tharsis, hijo de Iauan, con sus hermanos, como lo fueron Ophir, y Heuilath de la India, tiene fundamento en elcapitulo diez del Génesis, que trata de la dispersión de las gentes, y población de las tierras, como lo fundamos de proposito en otro lugar.
It's absolutely intolerable that Tim has manipulated Colin's text in this manner. It is thoroughly dishonest and underscores his total lack of integrity. This is more proof that Timothy Jay Schwab is not to be trusted and his research should be discarded.
https://thegodculturephilippines.blogspot.com/2025/06/the-god-culture-father-colin-confirms.html
It also does not appear that Navarrete is agreeing with Colin about Tarshish settling the Philippines. The sentence of concern here is:
Grande antiguedad de moradores dà aquella tierra. En auer fido facilifsimo poblaríe todas aquellas Islas, por eftar algunas cercanífsimas a la tierra Continente, para mi no tiene duda.
Tim has translated this particular sentence in a different manner than the one I am receiving. Let's ask Gemini.
Both translations convey the same core meaning, and the differences are very subtle. However, let's break them down to see which is a slightly more direct translation of the original Spanish:
Original Spanish: "Grande antiguedad de morado-res dà aquella tierra. En auer fido faci-lifsimo poblaríe todas aquellas Islas,por eftar algunas cercanífsimas a la tierra Continente, para mi no tiene duda."
Your provided alternative translation: "Great antiquity of inhabitants of that land. In succession it would be very easy to populate all those Islands, since some of them are very close to the Continent, for me there is no doubt."
My previous translation: "Great antiquity of inhabitants is given to that land. It is undoubtedly very easy to populate all those Islands, being some very close to the mainland."
Comparison:
"Great antiquity of inhabitants...":
- Your version: "...of that land." - This is a very direct and accurate translation of "de morado-res dà aquella tierra" (inhabitants of that land).
- My version: "...is given to that land." - Also correct, but perhaps slightly less direct in connecting "inhabitants" directly to "that land."
"In succession" vs. "It is undoubtedly":
- Your version: "In succession it would be very easy..." - The phrase "En auer fido facilifsimo" literally means "having been very easy" or "it having been very easy." "In succession" is an interpretation and not a direct translation of any word in the Spanish.
- My version: "It is undoubtedly very easy..." - I translated "para mi no tiene duda" (for me there is no doubt) as "undoubtedly" and integrated it earlier in the sentence.
"for me there is no doubt" vs. integrated "undoubtedly":
- Your version ends with "...for me there is no doubt." - This is a very literal and accurate translation of "para mi no tiene duda" placed at the end of the clause as it is in Spanish.
- My version integrates "undoubtedly" earlier, which is also a valid way to convey the meaning but changes the sentence structure slightly.
Conclusion:
Your alternative translation is arguably slightly more "correct" in terms of its directness for "of that land" and its literal placement of "for me there is no doubt." However, the inclusion of "In succession" is not directly supported by the Spanish text.
My translation accurately conveys the meaning, but took a slightly more interpretative approach by integrating "undoubtedly" earlier and using "mainland" instead of "Continent."
Both are very good translations. If precision to sentence structure and literal word translation is paramount for "para mi no tiene duda," then your alternative is slightly better, if you remove "In succession." The phrase "In succession" is the only element that doesn't clearly map to a direct Spanish word in the provided snippet.
Now, let's ask ChatGpt.
Certainly. Here's the English translation of the Spanish sentence you provided:
"Great antiquity of inhabitants is given to that land. Since it would have been very easy to populate all those islands, because some are very close to the mainland, to me there is no doubt."
Modernized phrasing for clarity:
"That land is considered to have been inhabited since ancient times. Since many of those islands are very near the mainland, I have no doubt it was easy to populate them all."
Let me know if you'd like more context or the original source interpreted in full.
Gemini says, except for the added phrase "in succession," Tim's translation is "slightly better" because of its literalness. However, both Gemini and ChatGPT give a translation in which the "no doubt" refers not to Navarrete agreeing with Colin but with the ease populating the Philippine archipelago would entail since it is close to the mainland. Tim's translation may be literal word-for-word but it appears to miss the meaning of the text.
Maniolas is not the only Ptolemaic map place name Tim mentions. He claims Magellan found Catigara.
🧭 Magellan: The Course Corrector
Ferdinand Magellan’s 1521 arrival didn’t “discover” the Philippines — it corrected Ptolemy. Cap Catigara of Ptolemy was actually Samar-Leyte according to Magellan who even directly corrected Ptolemy and others. Yet, few seem to even know this.
https://thegodculturephilippines.com/maniolas-lequios-luzon----and-the-golden-isles-unveiled/
This is completely wrong and I have written about it before. Pigafetta did not say they landed at Catigara. He said they set course for it. He absolutely does not claim Samar-Leyte or any other place in the Philippines is Catigara.
Back in Spain the surviving crew were subject to interrogation. That testimony and a complete description of the voyage can be read at this link but it's all in Spanish. Maximilianus Transylvanus, a courtier of Emperor Charles V, actually interviewed the surviving crew members and wrote a summary of the voyage.
Now, the book of the aforesaid Peter having disappeared, Fortune has not allowed the memory of so marvellous an enterprise to be entirely lost, inasmuch as a certain noble gentleman of Vicenza called Messer Antonio Pigafetta (who, having gone on the voyage and returned in the ship Vittoria, was made a Knight of Rhodes), wrote a very exact and full account of it in a book, one copy of which he presented to His Majesty the Emperor, and another he sent to the most Serene Mother of the most Christian King, the Lady Regent.
As this voyage may be considered marvellous, and not only unaccomplished, but even unattempted either in our age or in any previous one, I have resolved to write as truly as possible to your Reverence the course (of the expedition) and the sequence of the whole matter. I have taken care to have everything related to me most exactly by the captain and by the individual sailors who have returned with him. They have also related each separate event to Cæsar and to others with such good faith and sincerity, that they seemed not only to tell nothing fabulous themselves, but by their relation to disprove and refute all the fabulous stories which had been told by old authors.
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_First_Voyage_Round_the_World/Letter_of_Maximilian,_the_Transylvan
In his introduction Maximilianus recognizes the importance and worth of Pigafetta's published journal and tells us that what is to follow was related to him by the surviving crew members. That is crucial for what he writes about concerning Cattigara.
When our men had set sail from Thedori, one of the ships, and that the larger one, having sprung a leak, began to make water, so that it became necessary to put back to Thedori. When the Spaniards saw that this mischief could not be remedied without great labour and much time, they agreed that the other ship should sail to the Cape of Cattigara, and afterwards through the deep as far as possible from the coast of India, lest it should be seen by the Portuguese, and until they saw the Promontory of Africa, which projects beyond the Tropic of Capricorn, and to which the Portuguese have given the name of Good Hope; and from that point the passage to Spain would be easy. But as soon as the other ship was refitted, it should direct its course through the archipelago, and that vast ocean towards the shores of the continent which we mentioned before, till it found that coast which was in the neighbourhood of Darien, and where the southern sea was separated from the western, in which are the Spanish Islands, by a very narrow space of land. So the ship sailed again from Thedori, and, having gone twelve degrees on the other side of the equinoctial line, they did not find the Cape of Cattigara, which Ptolemy supposed to extend even beyond the equinoctial line; but when they had traversed an immense space of sea, they came to the Cape of Good Hope and afterwards to the Islands of the Hesperides.
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_First_Voyage_Round_the_World/Letter_of_Maximilian,_the_Transylvan
At this point in the voyage it is December 1521 and the crew are on the island of Tidore which is in the Moluccas. One of the ships springs a leak but it cannot be fixed. The other ship is told to press ahead to the Cape of Cattigara but they are never able to find it.
There you go. Simple as that. Neither Pigafetta nor the surviving crew members claim Samar is the Cape of Cattigara or that they ever found its actual location. There is more to this story as those who listened to the testimony of these men decided that Gilolo island in the Moluccas was Cattigara.
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=miun.afk2830.0001.001&view=1up&seq=219&skin=2021 Item: it can not be denied that the island of Gilolo, lying near the Maluco Islands, is the cape of Catigara, inasmuch as the companions of Magallanes journeyed westward upon leaving the strait discovered in fifty-four degrees of south latitude, sailing such a distance west and northeast that they arrived in twelve degrees of north latitude where were found certain islands, and one entrance to them. Then running southward four hundred leagues, they passed the Maluco islands and the coast of the island of Gilolo, without finding any cape on it. Then they took their course toward the Cabo Buena Esperanza [Good Hope] for Spain. Therefore then the cape of Catigara can only be the said island of Gilolo and the Malucos.
Are these men, who were well acquainted with the testimony of the entire crew dunderheads and ninny's who ignored actual history? Of course not.
https://thegodculturephilippines.blogspot.com/2023/04/the-god-culture-100-lies-about_18.html
Though he reads this blog, Tim continues to ignore those facts.
As it stands Tim claims the Philippines is: The Garden of Eden, the Holy of Holies, the Land of Creation, Arsareth, Havilah, Sheba, Seba, Tarshish, Ophir, Lequios, Maniolas, Antillia, Thilis, Japan, Swarnadwipa, Al-Wakwak, Catigara, and the land of Gold spoken of by all nations. This is not history, it is bloated and ridiculous myth-making which has been shown many times to have a foundation "so flimsy that it cannot even generate probability." Yet Tim, in the midst of all his textual manipulations, claims he has a "monumental case no one can disprove."
As I noted, Tim is either writing a new book about this subject or he's updating his previous book. He says these two articles are not his full position as that will be revealed much later with more information. He claims to have a plethora of sources to back him up. But as we see with this source, Navarrete, and as we have seen with every other article he has published, Tim's plethora of supporting documents doesn't exist except in seriously misunderstood and manipulated terms. If this is the type of material he intends to publish in a book then it will only serve to solidify the lack of intellectual integrity of Timothy Jay Schwab who is The God Culture.
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