Acts of the Apostles in Cherokee: Expanded Bilingual Edition

"Why do you stand here staring into the sky?" Acts of the Apostles can be read as a sequel to the Gospel of Luke. It was written to be read aloud to a group of Christians gathered for the Communion. The author engages the reader by questioning a Christian's proper relationship with the Roman Empire, the civil power of the day: could a Christian obey God and also Caesar? The answer is ambiguous then, and still is. The Romans had (so far) never move against Jesus or his followers unless provoked by the Jews. In the trial scenes described, the Christian missionaries are always cleared of charges of violating Roman laws. Stephen's exposition in chapters 6 and 7 summarizes the history of the tribes of Israel from the journey of Abraham through the Egyptian captivity and exodus, and up to the betrayal and execution of Jesus by the Jewish authorities. Acts of the Apostles ends in Rome, with Paul proclaiming the Christian message under Roman protection. After the stoning of Stephen and conversion of Paul, the closing chapter of Acts can also be seen as a break with Jewish identity and leadership, and the transition of the Gospel to the larger Greco-Roman world. We present this Gospel in larger print to accommodate those who would like to study the characters in Cherokee, several of which are difficult to distinguish from one another in smaller type. We provide phonetic Cherokee and English for each verse, and the layout was executed to keep each verse to a single page, eliminating the need to flip pages to find stray bit of a verse. We recommend you sound out each word using the syllabary guide in the back of the book. The English used herein is drawn from the King James Version, The original translation into Cherokee drew from the Greek Textus Receptus, and required some creativity to present Mediterranean concepts strange to Native America. For example, the Hebrew 'gê'ben-hinnom' is simplified in Greek to 'gehenna'. A place of burnt offerings and Jerusalem's trash dump, it represents the destination of unascended spirits, and so was replaced in Cherokee with tsusginayi, which we have translated back into English as "the Ghostland". Proceeds from the sale of this volume benefit the Cherokee Bible Project and the Four Rivers Native American Church in their missions.