And when the blood of thy martyr Stephen was shed (Acts 7)

I'm not sure why Acts chapter seven is a new chapter, as it's clearly a continuing of the story from chapter six. Nonetheless, we pick right up with Stephen answering the accusation of blasphemy. He for some reason decides to respond by summarizing the Old Testament. Now, I've said this before in the blog, because it's come up: Stephen makes a few factual errors in his speech here, and I consider them errors by Stephen rather than Biblical contradictions, so I'm not likely to answer cases of claimed contradiction based on this speech. (I will ask the SAB to link to this explanation, however.)

Stephen starts with Abraham, and gets some timing matters wrong in his life, but the gist of the story is correct. He also rounds off the length of the Egyptian captivity, although God did the same thing in Genesis 15, which Stephen is referring to. (I also answered that issue in Genesis chapter 15.) After Abraham, he moves quickly to Joseph to tell the story of how the first generation Israelites came to be in Egypt. Somehow Stephen counts Jacob's family wrong (which I actually addressed in Genesis chapter 45-46) and gets some burial details off. Then he moves on to Moses, a man he calls "mighty in words" completely at odds with the impression you get of him in Exodus, although that's mainly Moses's impression of himself, and he does manage a few good speeches here and there in his story. The SAB takes issue with the description of who appeared in the burning bush, which oddly enough I didn't discuss in Exodus three, but in Mark twelve, where I explained it's a technicality. Stephen recalls the incident of the golden calf. He jumps from there to David and Solomon, and mentions the latter built the Temple, but the SAB asks a question here that is dependent on more than just Stephen, so I'll address it: Does God dwell in Temples? I would say the answer is "no", actually, and I'm appealing to the words of the verses on that page. The verses claimed for "yes" do call the Temple a "house", but neither actually says God dwells there. 2Chronicles seven says that God's name would be there, which is fine enough, but when it says his eyes and heart will be there, I think the sentiment is that God will watch over it rather than actually be contained by it, as Stephen quotes Isaiah 66 in verses 49-50.

As he finishes his speech, "Stephen blames the Jews for persecuting the prophets and murdering Jesus." (As the SAB puts it...) It sounds antisemitic, but it's true, and as I said in a previous chapter, when addressing the Sanhedrin, it's essentially true about Jesus as well. Anyway, this infuriates his audience, and he has a vision of Jesus in Heaven just before they grab him and take him outside to stone him to death. As they stone him, Stephen prays for them and falls asleep.