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.

The persecution that arose about Stephen (Acts 6)

Acts chapter six is a pretty boring chapter, as the SAB notes, but it's a lead-in to seven, which is a bit more exciting. The Apostles have some trouble with squabbles among the believers, and they get worried that with the church growing, they're going to be distracted from their work of preaching. So, they pick out seven men to deal with day-to-day administrative issues, and they list them, but watch those names, because five of them you're never going to hear again. So some nonbelievers at the synagogue start having issues with Stephen, and since they can't win a debate with him, they slander him with blasphemy. The chapter ends with an observation that Stephen had the face of an angel, which I've always just assumed that meant he looked calm and innocent, but who knows?

I will bring them again also out of the land of Egypt (Gen 50)

So, Jacob is dead, and his last request is to be buried back in the Promised Land. It's interesting that for so many of these forefathers, despite the fact that they had little or no ties to the land of Canaan personally, they wanted to be buried there, both to be with their forefathers and with their ancestors that they assumed God would bring back there sometime in the future. Joseph mourns for his father, but then he requests to Pharaoh that he and his family be allowed to take the body back to Canaan to be buried at Machpelah.

In much of this exchange, there are hints at an unsteady relationship between Joseph and Pharaoh that foreshadow what is to come. After all, Joseph was put into a position of prominence from out of prison precisely because he was useful to Pharaoh. Joseph must be very careful to promise Pharaoh that he will indeed come back and not stay in Canaan, the land of his birth. The accompaniment of Egyptian servants along the way may be partially out of respect for Joseph's high position, partially for the purpose of protection of the Israelites, and partially out of protection of Pharaoh's interests: to see to it that Joseph and his brothers (who are also on Pharaoh's payroll) return when they are done. Also, they leave their children behind.

Jacob is indeed buried at Machpelah, as the text says repeatedly. The SAB points out that Stephen claimed Jacob was buried in Shechem. Yeah, this is a contradiction, but I think there are a couple things that could be said about it. First of all, Stephen's speech in the book of Acts is a speech, and I don't know that the Bible would be required not only to be correct in every detail, but that every character in the Bible never make a mistake either. Surely there are many places in the Bible where prominent people say things that are quite mistaken. (Peter is famous for this, of course.) Secondly, Stephen is not so much making an outright error as telescoping the details of the story, since Joseph, and probably his brothers as well were buried in Shechem. This mixing of the two parts of the stories is no doubt the source of the error Stephen does appear to make about who bought the grave. In any case, this is not at all the first time we've run up against problems with Stephen's Acts 7 speech, nor will it be the last; just remember he's telling the condensed version of the Old Testament, and he's going to gloss over the details quickly.

After the funeral is over, Joseph's brothers get worried once again that he will take revenge on them, and they tell him that Jacob had commanded that they be forgiven. Jacob is never actually seen making this speech, so you might wonder whether they made it up. It doesn't matter, though, as once again, Joseph assures them that he believes it was all part of God's plan.

Joseph lives to be 110 years old (apparently not an absurd age for the SAB, whose threshold for absurd age lies somewhere between 123 and 137, I may do more research on this) and to see his great-grandchildren. I just realized that I misread an issue from chapter 48 that comes up here, but my response is the same: these prophecies about being brought back to the Promised Land (here, here and here) are not personal prophecies to be fulfilled in the lifetimes of these people, but point to the future Exodus centuries later. Jacob, Joseph, and the other patriarchs all died in Egypt, but God brought the twelve tribes of Israel back to the land in the end.

And the end this is. Genesis begins with the creation of life, and now ends with the death of this prominent patriarch of Israel. The Bible moves on to a new chapter in the history of that nation, and I will take a break.