Messiah In The Old Testament Episode 2
Cherokee Creation Story
Welcome to Messiah In The Old Testament. Today we are talking about creation stories. Now, there are literally hundreds of creation stories that have been collected throughout all the cultures on the earth. Of course, the Judeo-Christian story is the one that we will go through in the book of Genesis, the first two chapters, were God created the heavens and the earth and he created Adam and then he created Eve out of Adam's rib. But I want to look at some of the other creation stories, because they're very interesting, very colorful and for me very enjoyable to read them and to describe them to you.
The first of the several stories that were going to tell comes from the Cherokee nation. As a matter of explanation, the Cherokee nation is one of the, of course, first peoples in the United States. They had a large nation that encompassed several states in the southeast. They had territories in West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee. They had a very expansive tribal nation. Now they were highly organized. They had government. They had officials and this was a very proud group of people that had very set traditions. Now, part of the oral tradition that came out of the Cherokee nation was this creation story I'm going to tell to you today. Now, of course, the Cherokee were unfortunately transported further to the west in the Trail of Tears and relocated in the middle United States. That of course is a very unfortunate chapter in our history in the United States and many of us are very sad about that event. But before the Cherokee were relocated, there was an effort to write down a lot of their oral tradition and document it. This is one of the stories that has been written down and very well documented. So here it is.
The Cherokee people believed that in the beginning there was heavens above and earth below. Now the earth had not yet been created or
formed, so instead of earth that was just an expanse of water. They believed that the waters below and the heavens above were separated by a giant arch and that arch was essentially that of the arc of the sun. They believed above was heaven which they called Galun’lati and below was earth. Now this arch was made of granite and very solid and immovable. And above there existed lands which had animals and people and trees and crops and it was a very happy abundant land. And they believed that as people come down to earth to live their lives, after they're dead they go back up to Galun’lati. In fact, in their visions, a lot of the medicine men had the visions of what how life was in Galun’lati. This is where the term happy hunting ground comes from because they saw that there was abundant game in the plains and in the in the forest for people to continue their life as it was on earth in Galun’lati.
Now, in the beginning the earth had not yet been formed. And the vast expanse of waters were sitting beneath the arch. The animals above were getting a bit crowded, so they decided that they wanted to go down and explore the waters and see if they could find a place to live in the waters. Everybody was afraid to go down. It was dark. It was all water and they did know how they would handle that. Finally, one volunteer came forth and that was the water beetle. Now the water beetle was the last grandchild of the great beaver. Water beetle very bravely went down from Galun’lati to the waters. Being a water beetle, of course, he could stay on the top of the water. So, the water beetle skittered off to the east, skittered off to the west, to the north, to the South and explored the entire expanse of water and found that there was no land. Finally, the water beetle dove beneath the water, down to the bottom, to see if there was land underneath. And sure enough, found some soft mud at the bottom of the waters.
Water beetle scooped up some of that mud, and as water beetle surfaced and got closer to the surface, that mud began to expand and expand and expand and that became a giant island in this vast ocean. That island, of course, was earth.
The Cherokee believed that that island was then suspended to the granite arch through four cords. And those four cords, of course, were the four directions: North, South, East and West. So, the earth was suspended and if those cords were ever to break, the island would then sink underneath the waters and disappear. And the process would have to happen over again and they did actually believe that this happened a couple or three times [in the past]. The earth was wet and muddy and it was not habitable yet.
So, the animals were getting impatient up there above the arch in Galun’lati and they decided they would send some birds down. They send a succession of birds who flew over this landmass looking for dry land to land on. It wasn't dry enough yet so they came back up to Galun’lati and no bird could find a place to land.
Finally, they sent down the great buzzard. Now this wasn't just some random ordinary buzzard. This was the great buzzard. The buzzard of all buzzards. It was a ginormous buzzard who went down and flew throughout this landmass looking for a place to land. Now as he traveled, he got a little bit tired. The legend goes that as he flew over the Cherokee lands when his wings went down, he created valleys and when his wings swept up, he created mountains. So that is how the Cherokee lands had valleys and mountains. If you've ever been to Chimney Rock Park or any of the other parks, in that mountainous region of the Carolinas, you know what I'm talking about, deep valleys and high ridges. The buzzard could not land because it was not dry yet so the buzzard went back up. They waited and they waited and finally, finally the land dried out.
The animals started going down one by one and they started populating the earth. Now, when they went down, they discovered that it was still dark on the earth, that there was no sun in the sky. So, they obtained the sun and they set the sun in the east. So then as the sun arose and followed the arch and then set in the west, and they believed that it was carried underneath the earth and then rose again the next day.
Once this sun cycle was set in place, then they obtained plants from Galun’lati and the plants were brought down and the forests were planted and the shrubs. And the entire Earth then was covered with vegetation and the animals came down and populated it.
So, now the stage was set for man and woman to come down from Galun’lati. So, the first man and the first woman came down together and stepped foot on the earth. When they found the earth, that it was very fertile and very full of life, they decided that they would themselves have a child.
So, the man went to a stream, grabbed a very large fish out of the stream, and he took that fish and he slapped the woman on the side of her face with the fish and that is how she became pregnant. Now the woman at first was able to have a new child every seven days. So, the slapping the fish and having children this happened over and over and over. Finally, the earth got a little bit too full of children. So, the decision was made by all the animals and everybody on the earth that this was going to over populate the earth. So, this was changed so that the woman could only have one baby a year instead of one baby every seven days. Now I hope you enjoyed this story, because I think it is a very, very colorful story, a very enjoyable story. And you'll notice that it does have some similarities with the story that we find in the book of Genesis. And you'll see that there are similarities between other stories. We are going to go through several of these stories during the course of these first episodes.
Thank you for watching our show today. We hope that you enjoyed watching it as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you. Now, after watching this episode you might be saying to yourself, “Who is this Messiah that Dr. Smith is talking about?
Is he talking about the Christian Messiah? Is he talking about Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who was born of the Virgin Mary. And then
lived a blameless and holy life on the earth, And then was tortured and crucified. And after he died he then was resurrected from the dead after three days. Then after people witnessed this, he was then taken up bodily by Elohim into heaven from the Mount of Olives.
Or is Dr. Smith talking about the Muslim prophet Isa. Isa Ibn Maryam, the messenger, who was sent by Allah to bring a message to the people. The Quran says he that lived a holy and blameless life, was born of the virgin Mary. He fulfilled all the Jewish prophecies in exact accordance. But one difference, instead of being crucified, he then was taken up by Allah into heaven before the Romans laid hands on him. And he awaits there now in the fourth heaven where at the end of days at the day of judgment he will be revealed to all.
Or is Dr. Smith talking about the Jewish Messiah? The Messiah who has not yet been revealed, that the entire Jewish world is waiting for his revelation. Now, the beautiful thing is that you can hold to any of these beliefs. And we can all still learn together about Messiah. We can learn about our Christian Messiah. We can learn about our Jewish Messiah. We can learn about our Muslim prophet Isa who will be revealed. It doesn’t matter what you believe. You can even be an atheist or agnostic and still learn from this program about Messiah. Now, I have to admit I am a Christian so I approach things, obviously, from a Christian point of view. And I promise you, as we reveal these prophecies, which I believe have all been fulfilled through Jesus Christ. Or will be fulfilled when he comes back, returning in the clouds in the same way he was taken up. I believe that all of this is true, but I promise you I will do my very best to present these prophecies from a neutral point of view. And try to keep my Christian bias to a minimum. Obviously, it will pop up from time to time but I will try to stay only in the Tanakh and try not to get into the New Testament very often. Now, if you want more information about Messiah, we have resources for you.
We have a website which is findingmessiah.org. Now, on that website you are going to find several resources. You will find links to all the
videos, all the episodes that we have created so far. You will find links to download the transcripts of any of these episodes. And then you will find a section where you can get more information about Messiah through frequently asked questions. And then there is a section for donation. If you want to come alongside our ministry at Finding Messiah.
Now, there’s going to come a time in this series where you are going to be confronted with the question: What are you going to do with Messiah? Who do you believe Messiah is? Which of these Messiahs do you believe Dr. Smith is talking about? And Messiah will become real to you if you look at all the information presented and come to your conclusions. So, join us as we continue our journey through the Old Testament Scriptures looking for all the Messianic Prophecies. And join us next time as we reveal those to you.
