The God Culture: The Scholars Speak

Timothy Jay Schwab of the God Culture hates scholars. At least that is what he says in all his videos and writes in his books. Time and again Tim will harangue the scholars who operate in a  false paradigm sitting in willing ignorance denying the truth that he has unveiled by reading their books. That's right. Tim uses the works of scholars to flesh out his claims. For this reason I wrote to several scholars whose material he uses and asked them what they thought of Tim's conclusions. Do I even need to reveal the answer? I know Tim won't care a hill of beans for what's about to follow but anyone with half a brain who is really interested in truth and not just confirming their own opinions would do well to carefully read what these men have to say.

First up is Professor Adrian Horridge. Before I came along to fact check Timothy he had never heard of Professor Adrian Horridge. Instead he had quoted him secondhand from former Supreme Court Justice Carpio who utilized a quote from Horridge to prove that the Philippines has domain over the South China Sea or West Philippine Sea. Here is what he writes in his book about Horridge's research.

"Theories that Austronesian rigs were derived from those of the Indian Ocean, or even from Egupt, are mistaken because the Austronesions had left Mainland Asia long before contacts spread eastwards.” -Professor Adrian Horridge

We had one question the "belief" of Adrian Horridge yet his "belief" is clear here and Justice Carpio was accurate in his rendering of such.

Here is what Carpio wrote and it is to be found on page 136 of "The Search for King Solomon's Treasure."

Professor Adrian Horridge believes that by 200 BCE, Austronesian sailors were regularly carrying cloves and cinnamon to India and Sri Lanka, and perhaps even as far as the coast of Africa in sailboats with outriggers. -Supreme Court Justice Antonio T. Carpio

It should be noted that Carpio is using Horridge to prove that the WPS historically belongs to the Philippines.

It was I who questioned what Horridge meant in this paper because he uses the word "perhaps" in suggesting that Austronesians  were sailing to India and Africa by 200 B.C.

Annual trade between China and India through the Malacca Straits had opened by about 200 BC. Perhaps by that time Austronesian sailors were regularly carrying cloves and cinnamon to India and Sri Lanka, and perhaps even as far as the coast of Africa in boats with outriggers.

https://philippinefails.blogspot.com/2020/03/god-culture-does-timothy-schwab-have.html

Perhaps is not a definite "is." Also it was apparent that Tim was drawing conclusions from Horridge's paper that were not supported by the text. Most notably he wrote that Filipinos were sailing balangay's directly to Egypt to engage in trade. Horridge writes nothing of the sort and uses the broad term Austronesians and not the specific term Filipinos. Who can clear up this mess better than Adrian Horridge himself?

I sent Professor Horridge a PDF file of pages 135-137 of Timothy Jay Schwab's book "The Search for King Solomon's Treasure where Tim quotes Horridge as proof that Filipinos sailed to Egypt for trade in 200 B.C.  His response is as follows:

Dear David, 

The Austronesians were certainly carrying cargoes with outrigger boats as far as the Red Sea, and the coast of Africa near Zanzibar, and they colonized Madagascar before 200BC,

Traces of cinnamon can be found in Egyptian Mummies from  2000 BC,

The trade hugged the coasts of India and Persia, then via Basra and Palmyra. 

The Romans imported the laxative Cassia from the Malabar coast of India etc, etc.

and there is no shortage of evidence about pepper, ginger etc..

However, the argument has no strength because there were others besides the Philippino Austronesians, who perhaps went no further than the Malacca Straits.

From the 8th to 11th centuries the Empire of Sri Vijaya ruled Sumatra and Malaysia

and their ships dominated the trade through the south China Sea as far as China,

and they carried the seaborne trade for the Chinese, who called them the 'kun lun'.

They were followed, until about the 14th century, by the maritime empire of the Chams, 

also Austronesians, who were  based at Hue upon the coast of present Vietnam.

They travelled as far as Japan and India.

The arguments based on this history are all rubbish.

The seas were free for all until coastal limits of about 12 miles were set, with  maritime laws that were recognized internationally.

Later, limits were set at 200 miles in some places, but it was always recognized that international shipping could pass freely  except in times of war.

Actually, all fishing should be banned in the huge area where 6 nations compete, so that the fish stocks can recover.

The question is not "Where can the fishermen go"

There are too many fishermen and the fish are overfished.

Thank you

Adrian Horridge

Two things to note here. Professor Horridge says that Austronesians were "certainly" sailing to Africa by 200 B.C. That means I was wrong that Horridge was merely speculating. But there is nothing wrong with being cautious rather than jumping to unwarranted conclusions. The conclusions that Tim and Carpio makes based on his paper Horridge calls "rubbish" and of "no strength" because there were others Austronesians besides Filipinos sailing afar. Professor Horridge also notes that not all Austronesians made it past the Malacca Straits.

Next up is Professor Frank Romer whose translation of Pomponious Mela Tim uses. He does not outright call the man a fraud and a propagandist but from the notes  where those who do not teach Tim's doctrine are called such it is clear he does think Romer is in fact a fraud and propagandist.

I have written elsewhere how Timothy completely misinterprets Mela and contradicts the notes Romer makes to the text. My email to Romer was pretty straightforward. I asked two questions.

1. What do you think of the claim that the islands of Chryse and Argyre are actually the Philippines being Luzon and Mindanao respectively? Is this a viable identification?

2. Is there any evidence that the Greeks cirucmnaviagted Africa to trade with the Philippines or Chryse or whatever Chryse may be?

Here is his response.

As to your question 1: As you will know Chryse and Argyre are problematic in the ancient record, and you could write an article about them if you wanted to do so. I looked at the text in the picture, which you sent previously, but which is very unclear, and I managed to make out some of it. I think it very unlikely that Chryse and Argyre are Luzon and Mindinao for some of the reasons given at the bottom of the page you sent. In addition, I know of no evidence that suggests otherwise. You may already know that Ptolemy puts Argyre as the capital of Java and sees Chryse as the Golden Peninsula of Malaysia.

 

As to your question 2: I know of no such evidence on this question either. The earliest info about the circumnavigation of Africa indicates that the Egyptians under Necho II did it from East to West, but that’s it, with no indication that any kind of trade followed. There is no evidence, material or literary, known to me that the Greeks themselves circumnavigated Africa and traded directly with the Philippines.

 

I hope this helps.

 

Best wishes,

Frank Romer

Let's deal with the second answer first.  According to this man who is a professor of ancient history there is no evidence that the Greeks circumnavigated Africa to trade with the Philippines. Now Tim will likely latch on the the words "known to me"as if Romer is just ignorant of evidence he does not know about. But Tim never provides any evidence to prove that the Greeks sailed around Africa to trade with the Philippines or vice versa. He simply makes deductive claims based on zero actual evidence "material or literary." In fact when I asked for further information about this claim Tim was dismissive and refused to provide anything which could substantiate his claim.

As for the first question, Romer says it is unlikely that "Chryse and Argyre are Luzon and Mindanao for some of the reasons given at the bottom of the page you sent." I do not know what he means because the page I sent is the page above where Timothy makes mincemeat out of Mela and calls anyone who does not follow him a propagandist.

I did know that Ptolemy idneitifes Chryse as the Malaysian Peninsula but I did not know that he places Argyre as the capital of Java. But here it is on an older map.

https://www.raremaps.com/gallery/detail/59685op/southeast-asia-fries

Lest Tim object by saying that is Argentea and not Argyre I challenge him to prove, from the Geography, that Ptolemy did not put Argyre as the capitol of Java or that he did not refer to Chryse as the Malaysian Peninsula. Remember, nu-uh is not an answer.

Third of all is noted Jubilees scholar James VanderKam. Aside from listing VanderKam's commentary as a source of note in his edition of Jubilees there is no indication that Tim actually cites VanderKam in his videos or books. I wrote to him asking his opinion concerning Tim's map of Noah' s division of the earth.

 

Here is his response:

Mr. Roxas,

My research into the map section of Jubilees gives me no reason for thinking that Ham's territory stretched as far as this commentary claims.  His territory is in Africa.

Best wishes,

Jim VanderKam

It's not as detailed an analysis as I would have liked but it gets straight to the point. Tim is wrong about Ham's allotment of Australia and South America. We can infer from that terse statement that if VanderKam read Tim's annotated Book of Jubilees he would find much fault.

Now, these are only the opinions of three scholars. I would have like to have had more expert testimony but it was not to be. Many of the people Tim cites are long dead and a few others whom he does not cite but are experts in the things Tim writes about, such as the Dead Sea scrolls, did not respond. I am omitting the testimony of Professor Fabrizio Lelli who is an expert on Abraham Farrisol who Tim claims places the lost tribes in the Philippines. You can read that at this link. 

As I wrote in the introduction Tim is not going to care what these people say. He has leveled so much vituperative invective in the pages of his book that it makes for hard reading. Who wants to read every other sentence, "We are right, scholars are wrong, and they are also lying frauds and propagandists?" But Tim actually does care what these men and other experts have to say. In fact he writes the following:

It is time for this to be taken seriously by those in authority, those in academia and those in the church.

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=690346041525416&id=376627072897316

It's totally disingenuous for Tim to lambast men who have devoted their life to a particular field or even book such as Jubilees and then say that those men should take him seriously. What Tim should really do is send copies of his books to VanderKam, Romer, and other experts in the field. Jose Eleazar Bersales is an archeologist in the Philippines. Why not send him a copy? He teaches at the University of San Carlos in Cebu. Here is his information page. Hopefully in the future we can read a review of Tim's book by an expert in ancient history, Philippine history, or second temple Judaism and the Dead Sea scrolls.