The God Culture: Penis Piercing Proves Pinoys Aren't Israelites

For years Timothy Jay Schwab who is The God Culture has floated around the thesis that Filipinos are actually members of the Lost Tribes of Israel. He has employed etymology, geography, theology, prophecy, and many other subjects to make his case. But what does it mean to be a member of the nation of Israel? Covenant membership via circumcision of course. Despite circumcision being the non-negotiable sign of the covenant, Tim hasn't said much about it as concerns pre-Spanish Filipinos. So, let's be like Antonio Pigafetta and examine the members of Filipinos to see if they practiced circumcision as the sign and seal of their covenant with Yahweh.  

In his journal Pigafetta writes:

Those people go naked, wearing but one piece of palm-tree cloth about their privies. The males, large and small, have their penis pierced from one side to the other near the head, with a gold or tin bolt as large as a goose quill. In both ends of the same bolt, some have what resembles a spur, with points upon the ends; others like the head of a cart nail. I very often asked many, both old and young, to see their penis, because I could not credit it. In the middle of the bolt is a hole, through which they urinate. The bolt and the spurs always hold firm. They say that their women wish it so, and that if they did otherwise they would not have communication with them. When the men wish to have communication with their women, the latter themselves take the penis not in the regular way and commence very gently to introduce it [into their vagina], with the spur on top first, and then the other part. When it is inside it takes its regular position; and thus the penis always stays inside until it gets soft, for otherwise they could not pull it out. Those people make use of that device because they are of a weak nature. They have as many wives as they wish, but one of them is the principal wife. When- ever any of our men went ashore, both by day and by night, every one invited him to eat and to drink. Their viands are half cooked and very salty. They drink frequently and copiously from the jars through those small reeds, and one of their meals lasts for five or six hours. The women loved us very much more than their own men. All of the women from the age of six years and upward, have their vaginas gradually opened because of the men's penises.

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=txu.059173001899092&seq=180

Pigafetta tells us that Cebuano men had their penises pierced at the request of their wives. He says he asked many times to see the penises of old and young men. He was shocked at what he found. Did he find that Filipinos were keeping the covenant of the nation of Israel by being circumcised? No. He found that the men had pierced their members with a large gold or tin bolt. He saw what was culturally significant. And it wasn't circumcision. 

While it's true that Pigafetta did not say they weren't circumcised he certainly did not say they were. Instead he noted the most significant aspect of these men's members which was the piercing. This piercing is antithetical to circumcision. Infant circumcision altered the penis by removing the foreskin and grafting the child into the nation of Israel. The piercing and altering of the penis at the insistence of the women for sexual pleasure was purely worldly and never sanctioned in the scriptures. In fact body modification for sensual or superstitious reasons is explicitly condemned in the Law of Moses:

Leviticus 19:28 “Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the LORD.”

In Leviticus 19:28, Israelites were forbidden from certain body modifications associated with pagan customs. While that text speaks of tattoos and cutting for the dead, it shows that modifying the body for reasons unrelated to covenantal purity was not acceptable in biblical Israel.

These modifications were not only amongst Cebuanos but amongst the Visayans as a whole. Antonio de Morga writes.

The natives of the islands of Pintados, especially the women, are very vicious and sensual. Their perverseness has discovered lascivious methods of communication between men and women; and there is one to which they are accustomed from their youth. The men skilfully make a hole in their virile member near its head, and insert therein a serpent's head, either of metal or ivory, and fasten it with a peg of the same material passed through the hole, so that it cannot become unfastened. With this device, they have communication with their wives, and are unable to withdraw until a long time after copulation. They are very fond of this and receive much pleasure from it, so that, although they shed a quantity of blood, and receive other harm, it is current among them. These devices are called sagras, and there are very few of them, because since they have become Christians, strenuous efforts are being made to do away with these, and not consent to their use; and consequently the practice has been checked in great part.

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo.31924105724524&seq=132

These body modifications known as palang were found all throughout the Philippines as Tom Harrison notes in the Journal Of The Malaysian Branch Of The Royal Asiatic Society

The variety of these clearly more or less authentic and usually ‘'eye witness” accounts further indicate the range, — both geographical (including Panay, Negros, Bohol, Cebu, Minadanao and Leyte ) and technical, — of palang- type devices in the Philippines four centuries ago, long before any detailed historical records are available for west Borneo.

https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.280676/page/n437/mode/2up

This sexual cultural practice, in contradistinction to covenantal circumcision, was nearly universal in the pre-Spanish Philippines.

Infant circumcision on the eighth day is exactly what is missing amongst Filipinos to qualify them as members of the Lost Tribes of Israel. Tim believes the whole nation is peppered with the Lost Tribes as evidenced in the alleged Hebrew etymology of place-names. These names appear from Luzon to Mindanao. But where is the uniform practice of infant covenant circumcision on the eighth day? It doesn't exist. Alongside circumcision, other markers of Israelite identity such as Sabbath observance, kosher laws, biblical festivals, the sacrificial system, and the Hebrew language have completely vanished, leaving no credible covenantal or liturgical trace.

In Mindanao the Muslim Moros have been practicing circumcision for hundreds of years but that is because of the introduction of Islam. Today Filipinos circumcise young boys when they are much older than eight days old. It is usually done between 4 and 10 years of age and as a social rite of passage or for medical reasons. If Filipinos are Israelites, why did the practice of infant covenant circumcision vanish while a contradictory, indigenous custom took prominence?

Infant circumcision isn’t a peripheral issue, it is central to the identity of biblical Israel. It’s a theological cornerstone that Tim has never addressed, and likely never will, because the evidence is irreconcilable with his thesis. The fact is, Pigafetta's first-hand description of pierced Pinoy penises is an undeniable cultural anchor that disproves the claims of Timothy Jay Schwab who is The God Culture.