Acts 7:1-8
We’ve got almost a week of Stephen’s speech, broken down into smaller chunks. He is telling Israel’s history.
There is confusion in verse 2, where Stephen says that Abraham was called out from …Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran. When you first read the account in Genesis 11:26-12:1 you see that Abraham was called by God from Haran, where his father Terah had settled, so it looks like Stephen had it wrong. [NOTE: Terah had earlier moved to Haran from “Ur of the Chaldeans” (Mesopotamia).] So it appears that Abraham was called from Haran and not from Mesopotamia, as Stephen says in verse 2. However, in Genesis 15:7 God tells Abraham, I am the Lord Who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess. So even though it was Abraham’s father, Terah, who moved the family from Mesopotamia to Haran, in effect God called Abraham out of Mesopotamia, as Stephen claims. Stephen would have to have known Scripture quite well to be able to make that statement.
Slava Bohu!
Stephen doesn’t seem to defend himself per se; he just speaks the truth. He had to know that he was risking his life, or at least the flogging that Peter got. Fearless, Spirit-filled.
No, there is no confusion in verse 2, and no, Stephen did not get it wrong. It is perfectly reasonable to read Genesis 11:26-12:1 with the understanding that God’s call to Abram to go to Canaan occurred before the stint in Haran.