The God Culture: We Didn't Edit Our Youtube Videos

Timothy Jay Schwab who is The God Culture really hates my article about his dishonestly edited videos. He is insistent that his research is transparent and full of integrity. He wants his audience to know he didn't edit any videos. 

Claims that we "edited" YouTube videos are factually false. YouTube does not allow post-upload editing; all updates were re-uploads with new URLs and proper clarification notes. This is standard practice—not deception.

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

"Factually false?" Really? What does Tim call this:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLru2qbCMGOi5gq1FV4RlgEAKP7WRCLca9

Three of the video titles say "Edited."

Tim says:

YouTube does not allow post-upload editing

I didn't claim he edited them on YouTube. That is a straw man argument. Also, YouTube DOES allow editing of already uploaded videos. 

Then Tim says:

all updates were re-uploads with new URLs and proper clarification notes.

That's called editing your videos. In fact the titles, which Tim wrote, say they have been edited. 

Of course it's not deceptive to edit your videos or your books or your blogs. I have to correct spelling errors from time to time. The reason I say Tim's videos are dishonestly edited is because he changed the slides without changing the audio. That means one video has Tim's voice confirming the authenticity of Greek Armor being found in Mindanao while the slide says "confirmation pending." 

original slide

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.

The dishonesty is evident when Tim's audio declares this armor "indisputably Greek," yet the screen presents a contradictory message. This type of misleading edit is not an isolated incident. The original blog post linked above details further instances of his videos being dishonestly edited.

This video is still posted which makes Tim's statement that he has distanced himself from the Greek armor meaningless. 

Genuine scholars update and refine without erasing prior discussion—standard academic practice seen across newspapers, journals, and research institutions.

In contrast, an anonymous blogger has accused us of "dishonesty" for doing exactly what responsible researchers are supposed to do. He even rehashes a four-year-old video on the so-called "Greek armor"—a claim we publicly distanced from years ago after responsibly investigating it.

https://thegodculturephilippines.com/galvão-s-maritime-flow-the-true-geography-of-ophir-lequios-and-japonês/

If he actually wanted to distance himself from "the so-called "Greek armor" he would delete the video. If he really thinks the armor is fake or questionable then he should delete the video. Adding a note to the screen while the audio claims the armor is "indisputably Greek" is not an update or a refinement, it's a contradiction. It is also not true that "newspapers, journals, and research institutions" do not retract statements. They do it all the time especially when the information is false. The Greek armor is false, the video needs to go. This is not a small error like a misspelling or getting a date wrong. The claim about "indisputably Greek" armor being found in Mindanao is fundamentally unhistorical, misleading, and untrue. 

In fact, the reason I brought this subject up again is because Tim was asked about it by a viewer.

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." Yet, Tim's video declaring the armor to be "indisputably Greek" remains up to deceive anyone who watches it.

It defies logic for Tim to say 

Claims that we "edited" YouTube videos are factually false

when the very titles of his videos clearly state "Edited." It's simply lie after lie from Timothy Jay Schwab.

Will he ever tell the truth?

The God Culture: Creating Fake Map Details Using ChatGPT

Timothy Jay Schwab who is The God Culture wants his interpretations of 16th and 17th century maps to be taken seriously. But how are we supposed to take him seriously when some of the images he posts are fake?

https://thegodculturephilippines.com/royal-cosmographer-confirms-the-lequios-diego-ribeiro-s-official-maps-locate-lequios-in-the-philippines/

At first glance that looks like a real map detail blown-up large for all to see. However, if this image is examined using the web inspector, the file name, as well as the rest of the image, can be seen quite clearly. 

The file name is chatgpt-image-may-8-2025-04_33_02-pm.png. That is not an anomaly. Many of the images on Tim's blog have been created using ChatGPT and have ChatGPT in the file name. All one has to do is use the web inspector to pull back the curtain. There is nothing wrong with using ChatGPT to generate images but this particular image is portrayed as if it is genuinely from an old map.  The content of the article makes that apparent.

Tim provides two blurry images of Diego Ribeiro's 1529 map on this page to serve as proof for his claims. He does not even provide a link to the map under examination. It can be found here. 

🗺️ 2. Key Map Evidence: OFFICIAL SPANISH GOVERNMENT MAP: 1529 Carta Universal (Library of Congress Copy)

🔍 Inscription near the Philippines:

"estas ysllas llaman lequios assimesmo son otras yslas"
“These islands are called Lequios, likewise they are other islands.” 

✅ Lequios label is directly over the Philippine archipelago, confirming the Spanish viewed this region as synonymous with Lequios, not Ryukyu.

📍 Below the Lequios label:

• Clearly labeled: "maniola" – the earliest Iberian spelling of Manila, used in Portuguese and Spanish circles before colonial standardization.

• This confirms that Manila was known to the Spanish Crown by this name at least by 1529.

Manila was known to the Spanish Crown by name in 1529? That is an historic impossibility. The City of Manila was founded by the Spanish on June 24th, 1571. Maniola, a designation that goes as far back as Ptolemy, is not the City of Manila. Rather, it is a reference to magnetic islands which were peopled by 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.

https://thegodculturephilippines.blogspot.com/2023/04/the-god-culture-100-lies-about_3.html

Here is the second piece of Ribeiro's 1529 map Tim misinterprets as being the Philippines. 

 

And near the South China Sea, just under the Tropic of Cancer and near where Hainan would be, you can spot: 

• “soure mayola” – likely a variant of Soure Manjola or possibly an early transcription error of Samar or another island. 

• “marague” – appears to refer to Marinduque or a nearby island (an early phonetic variation). 

• “calem” or “calin” – possibly a version of Calamianes or Calayan, located off northern Palawan/Luzon. 

These Spanish-Portuguese transliterations are often approximate, but they reinforce the Philippine identity of the archipelago.

Neither Samar nor Marinduque (which Tim misspells as Marandue in the fake map detail) appear on this map. Tim admits his uncertainty in the above citations where he writes "possibly an early transcription error of Samar" and "appears to refer to Marinduque." He doesn't know. He isn't sure. What he does do is twist “soure mayola” to become Samar and “marague” to become Marinduquande with no linguistic support. What is "soure mayola" and "margue?" Those do not appear to be real words and do not show up in any language database I have used. 

I ran this section through ChatGPT and received a completely different transcription and translation.

📜 Updated Image 2: Southeast Asia Context

Transcription (approximate):

en este lugar ay una  
sierra dela azemara  
boça de las Sierras  
de sierra tomentosa  
de panaca  
era  
quest
y na cordil
l[a?]  
yacote  
Y. Tumyeda

Modernized Spanish:

En este lugar hay una

Sierra de la Azemara

Boca de las Sierras

de Sierra Tormentosa

de Panaca

y una cordillera

que está

Yacote

Y. Tumyeda

Translation (adjusted to new context):

In this place there is a

Sierra of Azemara

Mouth of the Sierras

of Stormy Mountains

of Panaca

and a mountain range

that is

Yacote

Island Tumyeda

---

🧭 Geographic Interpretation

• Sierra de la Azemara: Possibly a misunderstanding or transliteration of a local mountain range. The name "Azemara" is obscure, perhaps drawn from an indigenous or Arabic term. It might relate to Cambodian or Vietnamese highlands.

• Sierra Tomentosa: "Stormy Mountains" — this is clearly a descriptive Iberian name, probably reflecting monsoonal conditions or treacherous geography.

• Panaca: May be a native place name or distorted from a local kingdom or city. Could possibly relate to the Khmer or Malay regions.

• Yacote: May correspond to Jakarta or Yakut—though the latter is Siberian and unlikely here, so Jakarta is more plausible phonetically.

• Y. Tumyeda: “Y.” stands for Ysla (island). “Tumyeda” could be a corruption of a local name; possibly Temuyut, Timor, or a fictionalized rendering of an unfamiliar island in the area.

This kind of naming on 16th-century maps often mixes:

• Local place names (phonetically transcribed)

• Descriptive Iberian labels (e.g., "Sierra Tomentosa")

• Guesses based on limited information from traders and explorers

Not only are these map portions illegible but using web inspector reveals that Tim has uploaded a much larger section of the map. 

That gives more of the context though it doesn't prove Tim right. The text is still illegible. Some arrows and underlining would serve to highlight the text Tim is mangling. Do notice the place where Tim says Samar and Marinduque are mentioned is to the West of where he says Manila is mentioned. Samar and Marinduque are to the Southeast of Manila! Of course Tim's own bulletpoints say these labels are near Vietnam which is not the Philippines.  

Also, don't miss the unicorn in the top left corner. If we are to adopt Tim's method of map interpretation then Southeast Asia is the land of unicorns!

Tim concludes thusly.

🔚 Conclusion: The Crown Drew the Line — And It Was Over the Philippines

When Diego Ribeiro — the Cosmógrafo Mayor of the Spanish Crown — labeled the Philippine islands as “Lequios”, he wasn’t speculating. He was drawing the official map of the empire, informed by firsthand maritime intelligence, Portuguese reports, and direct navigation accounts. 

He named Luçonia (Luzon), marked Maniola (Manila), and wrote over the archipelago: 

“Estas ysllas llaman Lequios...”

“These islands are called Lequios...” 

That is not a vague reference. That is a direct affirmation. 

It was only later—through colonial reinterpretation, Jesuit editorial bias, and academic assumption—that “Lequios” was lifted off the Philippine map and misassigned to Ryukyu, despite the geographical, cartographic, linguistic, and ethnographic evidence to the contrary. 

But history speaks in ink, not erasure. And the Smoking Quill writes again—this time with the Crown’s own cartographer as its witness.

I uploaded the portion of the map mentioning the Lequios to ChatGPT and asked for a transcription and translation.

📜 Image 1: Scroll Text (Top Banner)

Transcription (approximate):

Estas baxas tienē nombre por el

d[e] bar los lequios assimesmo

se otras yslas

Modernized Spanish:

Estas bajas tienen nombre por el

de bar los Lequios, asimismo

se [llaman] otras islas

Translation:

These shallows are named after the

bar of the Lequios, likewise

other islands are [named so]

🧭 Analysis:

• The term “Lequios” refers to the Ryukyu Islands (modern Okinawa), which were called "Lequios" by Iberian sailors.

• The reference to “baxas” (shallows) and naming suggests this label is not over the Philippines but possibly a navigational note referring to dangerous areas near the Lequios.

• This section seems more maritime/navigation-related than territorial labeling.

That transcription and translation significantly differs from what Tim has written. Ribeiro did not write anything over the Philippine archipelago. The maps Tim perverts in this article are dated 1527 and 1529. The Philippine archipelago had not been mapped out at that time. 

It was not until the 1540s that islands more or less recognizable as the Philippines began to appear on European world maps. The first Spanish cartographer to show Palawan and Mindanao was Santa Cruz, in his “Islario”; however, his knowledge was thin and inaccurate. The general shape of the islands was better delineated about 1551 by Sancho Gutiérrez, son of the older Diego Gutiérrez. His world map shows the chain of islands in general outline and in roughly the correct place; Sancho was in fact one of the cartographers called on to give an opinion on the position of the Philippines and the Moluccas, at Seville in 1566.

During 1564 and 1565, an expedition led by the Basque Miguel López de Legaspi visited the Philippines, and four charts made by pilots who accompanied that expedition are preserved at the AGI in Seville. They did not show much detail of the islands, however, and the first relatively detailed map was the one drawn about 1572 by Diego López Povedano. This showed the island of Negros in some detail, though in a very naïve way. In the map of the western Pacific Ocean compiled by Juan López de Velasco about 1575, the shape of the island was still very approximate, though this had been largely corrected in the printed version of this map published at Madrid by Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas in 1601

https://press.uchicago.edu/books/hoc/HOC_V3_Pt1/HOC_VOLUME3_Part1_chapter41.pdf

Diego Ribeiro wasn't "drawing the official map of the empire" in 1529 as if it were a 100% accurate depiction of the region. Such a claim reveals Tim fundamentally does not understand this map. Tim's distortion of Ribeiro's map has created meaning where there is none. 

This map and all the other 16th and 17th century maps Tim wrests demonstrates Europe's emerging knowledge of East Asia. These maps were constantly being revised. It's not a conspiracy to hide the Lequios Islands. Every single written journal, description, and eyewitness testimony places the Lequios Islands in the north near Japan, not in the Philippines. Timothy Jay Schwab's interpretation of these imprecise and incomplete maps is wrong. While he may not be intentionally misleading people, creating fake map details such as the one in this article is bound to confuse people who are not very discerning. 

The God Culture: The Location of Ophir Before Spanish Document 98

One of the many reasons Timothy Jay Schwab who is The God Culture believes the Philippines is Ophir is because some European explorers said so. Another reason is because he misidentifies the place some European explorers said was Ophir as being the Philippines. That place is the Lequios Islands. Spanish Document 98 identifies them with Ophir and Tarshish, Magellan allegedly scratched out Lequios substituting Ophir and Tarshish, Tim believes the Lequios Islands are the Philippines, therefore the Philippines is Ophir and Tarshish. According to Tim, this identification was "official Spanish policy."

https://thegodculturephilippines.com/from-seville-with-gold----barbosa-magellan-and-the-suppressed-identification-of-ophir/

Primary Evidence:

1. French Source (1907) – Bulletin de la Société Royale Belge de Géographie, pp. 439–461

“Odardo Barbosa… resolutely identified [Lequios] with Ophir and Tarshish… in a document we found in the Archives of the Indies in Seville.”

1. Magellan's Submission

“It is permissible… to conclude that the navigator [Magellan] presented to the King the revised version of the report by his friend Barbosa… accompanying it with formal astronomical determinations.”

1. Suppression in Print

2. The Seville manuscript used “Ophir and Tarshish.”

3. The Lisbon printed edition replaced them with “Lequios.”

4. The 1907 journal concludes this was a clear editorial shift obscuring the original biblical identification.

Supporting Evidence:

• Cabot Map (1544): Labels the “Canal of the Lequios” in Philippine waters.

• Santa Cruz Map (1539): Places “Carrigara” and Cebu together between 7–12°N latitude. Places Lequios Canal in West Philippine Sea

• Document #98 (Spanish Archive): Equates Lequios and Ophir directly, and as a destination more important than China.

• Pigafetta’s Journal: Notes traders from the northwest (i.e., Luzon) during his time in Cebu.

• Galvao (1555): Places the Lequios specifically as Lucones (Luzon). Defines Pinto's shipwreck on Luzon as well. 

• Castenhada (1883): Defined the Lequios Isles as Southeast of China, never Ryukyu nor Japan. 

Conclusion:

The identification of the Lequios Islands as Ophir and Tarshish was official Spanish policy, documented by Magellan, recorded by Barbosa, and submitted to the Crown. The editorial erasure that followed was not an academic oversight—it was cartographic and historical suppression.

This exposé restores the truth, not by conjecture, but by returning to the primary source in Seville that declared the Philippines the Land of Gold—Ophir.

This is circular reasoning founded on speculation and later hearsay. What does Tim mean that this identification was "official Spanish policy?" Does he have any official Spanish documents signed by the King stating the Lequios Islands are Ophir? A royal decree? Official correspondence? State-sanctioned documents such as navigational charts, treaties, or reports, that formally label the Lequios Islands as Ophir?  Tim doesn't cite any official Spanish government documents in this article. He cites maps and the assumption of a magazine article. "It is permissible to conclude" is not a statement of fact.  Tim is going to need a whole lot more evidence to prove his theory that the identification of the Lequios Islands as Ophir was "official Spanish policy." Document 98 is not an official government document. It is a list of Portuguese discoveries, not a royal edict.

The same French article Tim cites say Sebastian Cabot was tasked with finding Ophir and Tarshish.

"HERRERA. General History of the Deeds of the Castilians, etc., Madrid, 1601, Decade III, Book IX, Chapter III: Sebastian Cabot was to go in search of the Moluccas as well as the other islands and lands of Tarshish, Ophir, eastern China and Japan, crossing the Great Gulf, and load his ships with gold and silver, precious stones, etc. (... concerning the Moluccas... and also in search of the other islands and lands of Tarshish, Ophir and eastern Cathay, and Cipango, crossing that Gulf to trade and load the ships with Gold, Silver and precious Stones, Pearls, Drugs, Spices, Silks, Brocades, etc.)."   

If, as Tim claims, it was "official Spanish policy" that the Lequios Islands were Ophir and Tarshish and Magellan gave the King precise astronomical data as to their location why would Cabot have to go in search of them? He should have been able to sail directly there. Also, in Cabot's instructions the location of Tarshish and Ophir are associated with eastern China and Japan. That's not the Philippines. This further suggests that neither Cabot nor anyone else identified the Lequios Islands, Ophir, and Tarshish with the Philippines which Magellan had already discovered before Cabot set sail in 1526. 

Basing the location of Ophir on someone's say-so and misidentifying the location is no way to do history or geography. Spanish Document 98 dates to sometime before 1522 and details Portuguese discoveries which means that list cannot contain the Philippines since it was the Spanish who discovered the Philippines, not the Portuguese. I have an article about Document 98 here. 

It was the Spanish who inserted the identifier of Tarsis and Ofir for the Lequios Islands. Why was this done?  On what basis did Barbosa and Magellan believe the Lequios Islands, a place no European had yet explored, were Ophir and Tarshsish? What evidence did they and the author of Document 98 have for such speculation? Tim does not think to ask those questions. He accepts the identification as fact. 

These are especially relevant questions because Barbosa and Magellan were both Portuguese explorers. Yet, Ophir was found by the Portuguese before Barbosa wrote his book which means both he and Magellan were likely aware of that information. In 1502 Portuguese sailor and explorer Thomé Lopes set sail to India with Vasco de Gama. He wrote that Ophir was actually in Mozambique in a place named Sofala. He says the natives claimed to have written documentation proving this out. 

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=ucm.5309452470&seq=345

Where it is said that the ships of King Solomon took gold, and where myrrh is gathered in abundance.

On Friday, the 22nd of July, in the morning, we entered the port of Mozambique, having passed through a sea full of small islands, which they call islets, and we saw crossbow fire from the land. Then some Moors came out to greet us and brought a letter from the sheikh of the mainland, who sent to the captain saying he wished to be friends with the King of Portugal. The captain welcomed them courteously and gave gifts to the islanders, since he saw that the port was safe and peaceful, and the Moors were experienced in navigation and trade.

We decided to continue on toward Quiloa, and the next day we came to the island of Amiceida, where we disembarked. There, we found a great abundance of myrrh. The captain sent men inland, who returned saying that the lands there were rich in gold, and that the gold of Solomon had come from that region, since his ships took three years to return — and that this might be that same land. They also said that the Queen of Sheba had come from that place, and that it belonged to the lands of India.

Likewise, the Moors told the captain that in that land there was a large quantity of myrrh. Beyond that, they found many kinds of spices. They said that the interior lands were extremely wealthy and that they traded gold, pearls, and other riches. Therefore, they were highly honored. The island and the adjacent mainland were inhabited by Moors under the lordship of the sheikh of Amiceida, who had submitted to the captain of the mines of Cefala.

And those responsible for the mines said that there had once been great quantities of gold, but now it was no longer abundant. Still, they said that by digging, one could extract a little gold, though not as before. And when it was found, they smelted it and made coins from it. This gold was said to be very pure, and it was prized even in the East and among merchants who came from Mecca, Zidem, and India.

They spoke of the mines of Ophir and referred to many books and writings, saying that this was the place from which King Solomon’s ships came to fetch gold, and that this was Ophir. They also said the Queen of Sheba had departed from there to visit King Solomon with gifts, just as the Scriptures recount.

Thomé Lopes notes the natives not only claimed Sofala to be Ophir but cited written records as proof. While the nature of those records are not revealed, this is stronger evidence than mere hearsay or speculation. It shows a documentary connection to the biblical location of Ophir. The natives also say gold was no longer abundant. That fits a scenario where Solomon mined the region for many tons of gold. The true location of Ophir would likely be stripped of resources. Contrast that to Tim's thesis that the Philippines is Ophir because it still has many tons of untapped gold in the ground. 

Duarte Pacheco Pereira, in his book Esmeraldo de Situ Orbis, confirmed this discovery. 

For in the second year of your reign 1497 a.d. and the 28th year of your age your Highness ordered the discovery to be continued from Ilheo da Cruz, where King John left off, and without counting the great and heavy expense, a portion of Ethiopia under Egypt was discovered, which from the earliest times to our day was utterly unknown. Your captains discovered anew the great mine which some hold to be that of Ophir and is now called Çofala, whence the most wise King Solomon according to. . .the ninth chapter of the third book of Kings and the eighth chapter of the second book of Paralipomenon, drew 420 talents of gold with which he built the holy temple at Jerusalem.

Esmeraldo de Situ Orbis, pgs. 4-5

Pereira's book was written between 1505 and 1508.

Dr Jaime Cortesao, who has studied the question very fully, is of the opinion that the first fifteen chapters, or somewhat less than a quarter of the work, were written during the last months of 1505, the remainder between 1507 and 1508.

pg. xvii

In 1539 Joao de Castro reaffirmed Sofala as being the location of Ophir and recommend that the king of Portugal repair it. 

The number of Portuguese in these parts is great, for from Sofala to China there is nothing that has not been tread upon by them. But those of us who are in the King's service are few and poorly organized, and in my judgment, the Viceroy, should he wish to give battle to the Turks, would not be able to assemble two thousand men. From this one perceives the neglect and relaxation in His Majesty's service that has occurred in India, for though Your Highness pays seventeen thousand men each year, there are not even two thousand truly in service — not to speak of the many others who should be guarding the fortresses.

I took some time to examine the muster roll, and the conclusions I drew from it were these: besides much deceit, theft, loss of honor, and destruction of Your Highness's wealth, it should not be called a muster roll but rather a register of evils. In it I found many men who had been paid twenty or thirty thousand cruzados in wages, wages that had been purchased at fifteen or twenty percent, and below that, countless others. It seems to me a shameful thing that this muster roll was the instructor that taught the Portuguese to lose their honor, their fear of God, and their desire to serve Your Highness.

A great remedy and correction was that Your Highness sent someone so virtuous and diligent in seeking the truth, as is Cosme Anes, its scribe. Your Highness has many fortresses in these parts that truly are fountains of gold, and that name is not strange, for in ancient times it was called the Golden Chersonese (Malacca), and it would not be far-fetched to suspect that Sofala is Ophir, from where Solomon sent his ships to load gold.

And if the other fortresses were to say, 'I have no gold or silver,' as Saint Peter said to the beggar who asked him for alms, they may still be asked for what they do have — and they will give cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and all sorts of spices. And if this is so, then it is clear that the wealthiest and most profitable places bring more loss to Your Highness than benefit — a complaint made by all of us who travel these lands.

I do not know who precisely bears the blame, but it seems to me that Your Highness ought to repair Sofala and all that lies from the Cape of Comorin eastward, and you would be freed from such great expenses and troubles.

https://archive.org/details/dli.ernet.535308/page/n11/mode/2up

This was written at least 17 years after Spanish Document 98. If the Portuguese thought the Lequios Islands were Ophir and Tarshish as that document appears to claim why did he continue to insist on Sofala as being the correct location?

These are three early attestations that Ophir was discovered by the Portuguese in Africa. Significantly, two of these accounts predate any knowledge of the Lequios Islands. In contrast, the third account supports the Sofala claim even after the Lequios Islands were discovered and proposed as an alternative location for Ophir. Why shouldn't this claim for Sofala be believed over all others? Written evidence from the natives make this claim rather strong. The lack of gold which was once abundant also fits the story of Solomon mining the region.

However, there are many who object to Sofala being Ophir. The fact that this proposed location is contested is exactly the point. Nobody knows where Ophir was located. Every single theory regarding Ophir is a guess. That includes the Philippines. Some guesses, such as Josephus's Golden Chersonesus, are more likely than others but they are all guesses. 

Why not stop with these silly games and pseudo-historic inquires and deal with real historical facts? In the end, the only honest answer is that no one knows where Ophir was. Every proposed location, from Mozambique to the Philippines, is speculative. For Timothy Jay Schwab to elevate his pet theory to certainty while ignoring others is not just poor history; it's intellectual fraud.

The God Culture: The Lequios Islands in Blair and Robertson's Philippine Islands 1493-1803 v. 32

While Timothy Jay Schwab who is The God Culture is on a mission to prove the Lequios Islands are the Philippines by distorting irrelevant 16th and 17th century maps as well as perverting the writings of European explorers, I propose a different course. That course is to use the words of the Spanish colonizers of the Philippines who differentiated between the Lequios Islands and the Philippines. 

In volume 32 of Blair and Robertson's Philippine Islands there are several mentions of the Lequios Islands. One mention says directly that the Lequios Islands are subject to the Japanese. Several mentions are stories of priests clandestinely making their way to Japan via the Lequios Islands. 

They could not have done that if the Lequios Islands were the Philippines. These firsthand narratives confirm Pinto’s claim that Japan could be seen from the Lequios. Tim’s attempt to collapse the distinct regions of the Lequios Islands and Luzon into one is not only historically unfounded, it is geographically incoherent. He ignores the testimony of those who sailed these seas and the geopolitical realities of the time in favor of a revisionist fantasy built on speculation, not evidence.

I know Tim will dismiss all these eyewitness testimonies by responding:

Over time, colonial mapping and Manila’s administrative dominance buried this duality under a singular label: "Luzon." But the smoking quill still writes in the margins of old maps and forgotten chronicles. 

https://thegodculturephilippines.com/the-bifurcated-island-of-luzon-lequios-and-lucoes-rediscovered/

However, there is no documentary evidence for such a cartographic or administrative conspiracy. Tim may also allege that the original Spanish is ambiguous or that the English translations are unreliable. Yet there is no linguistic or historical analysis to support this, and such speculation would indicate a refusal to engage seriously with the texts themselves.

Here are all the references to the Lequios Islands from volume 32. All of these citations are from a document dated to 1640 which begins in volume 30. 

There are near the province of Nueva Segovia certain islands, called Babuianes, following each other in a line toward the northeast until they approach near those which are called Lequios, which are near Japon. These latter are innumerable, and some of them are very large and very fertile. Their inhabitants are of excellent natural dispositions, so that, being heathen, they cause wonder in all of those who go there

pg. 91

A note on this section says the following.

The Babuyan and Batan Islands, groups lying north of Luzon, extend northward to near the southern end of Formosa. From near the northern end of that island, the Riu-Kiu Island stretches in a long northeastward curve to the vicinity of Kiushiu Island, in southern Japan. 

 

They followed the course by the Babuyanes and the islands of the Lequios, from which they were driven by a storm to the coast of China, where they took on water and wood at a point named Sombor.

pg. 139

Father Fray Juan de Rueda was a native of the mountains of Burgos, and had assumed the habit in San Pablo at Valladolid, whence he came to the Philippinas in the year 1603, being sent, as soon as he arrived, to the kingdom of Japon. Here he assumed the name of Fray Juan de los Angeles. When the priests were banished, father Fray Juan was one of those who remained in hiding to aid and fortify the Christians there. In 1619 he came to Manila in order to obtain more religious. He reaped a great harvest in Arima. He was devoted to the holy rosary. He translated into Japanese the devotion of the holy rosary while he was in Manila. His anxiety to return was such that he strove to make his way back by the islands of the Lequios, where his arguments in favor of Christianity convinced those who heard them that he was a Spanish priest. He was therefore imprisoned for a time in an island called Avaguni, where he profaned a thicket which was dedicated to an idol, and for this suffered death, but on what day was never known.

pg. 146

The emperor of Japon in 1615, after his victory over Fideyori, sent an expedition against the island. It left Nangasaque in 1616 and wintered in the Lequios Islands.

pg. 155

Among the fathers in Japon at this time was a native Japanese, who had completed his course in arts and theology in the college of Sancto Thomas at Manila. He profited well by his studies, and had been given the habit, had professed, and had passed through all the orders. He had been taken by father Fray Bartholome Martinez, during his term as provincial, to the island of Hermosa-not to remain, but to make his way from there to Japan, if possible, by the islands of the Lequios. He was dressed after the Japanese fashion, with two swords, and succeeded in making his entry into Japon, from which he wrote a letter to the provincial, dated January 3, 1630. In this he says that he reached his country on the eve of St. Martin; but that he has been unable to get into communication with his superior, who was at that time father Fray Domingo de Erquicia. He later writes that it is dangerous to send letters, because of the severe punishment of those who are caught with letters of the fathers upon them. If it had not been for the return of this father in this way, no information would have been received with regard to the fate of Father Juan de Rueda in the islands of the Lequios.

pg. 181

Father Fray Jacobo de Sancta Maria, a Japanese by nation, who had assumed the habit in our convent of Manila, August 15, 1624, was martyred in this year. He had returned to Japon in 1632. He went by way of the islands of the Lequios; and the champan in which he traveled with some Japanese fathers of the Society encountered storms, and was cast upon the shores of Coria.

pg. 218-219

There was great difficulty in sending religious to Japon; but father Fray Thomas went, disguised in Japanese dress, to the island of the Lequios, which is subject to the Japanese. Here by the death of his companion he was left alone, with ornaments and money, and with the direction to go to Japon at the first opportunity and to present himself to his superior, at that time the holy martyr Fray Domingo de Erquicia. In the letter which father Fray Thomas wrote back, he briefly mentions being in the island of the Lequios, making no allusion to the great sufferings which he must have passed through on this journey

pg. 241

There was great difficulty in sending these four religious to Japon, which was finally overcome by the determination of the religious. In the year 1634, some Spaniards had been cast on shore  on the islands of the Lequios, which are subject to Japon. They were examined to see if they were religious or no; but, as it did not appear that they were, they were set free. Many Japanese came to them by night, asking them if they were priests to hear their confessions; and, being assured that they were not, they begged for priests to come to them. Father Fray Vincente de la Cruz and a Christian Japanese offered to take the religious whom the province might send and to make their way from the Lequios Islands to Japon. The governor, learning that the expedition was about to be equipped, burned the vessel which had been prepared, and set sentinels at the mouth of the bay to prevent the religious from setting out. By God's aid they succeeded in eluding him, and after meeting with storms made their way to the islands of the Lequios, where they landed July 11, 1636. No certain reports have been received as to what occurred in the islands; but the fathers seem to have been arrested as soon as they revealed themselves, and to have been sent as prisoners to Japon.

pg. 286