Stephen in his speech in Acts told the abridged version of the Hebrew Bible. While doing so he decided to include and exclude different stories, as well as characters from the old testament as he so choose. I will try and explain here the reasons why he selected what he did, and also address the question of the order of the stories. Overall, I believe that which was included, was so for the reason of creating a different image of God as well as the stories of the Old Testament.
Starting at the beginning of Stephen’s speech he address the story of Abraham.“The God of glory appeared to our ancestor Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran,and said to him, ‘Leave your country and your relatives and go to the land that I will show you.’”(Acts 7: 2-3) In this passage Stephen does a few things, he leaves of the story of Abraham …show more content…
Leaving out the story of Abraham and Isaac would have kept from the reader/listener the trials that God put Abraham through. Making Abraham take his son, that was only possible because of God, to a mountain and to sacrifice his son to God. The absence of this makes the reading of the story seem more like a quest to spread the religion and populate new lands. It mentions nothing about the trial because at the time people may not have followed a being that was not omnipotent. To help and excuse the lack of detail in the story of Abraham, Stephen also neglects to develop the relationship between God and Abraham. This makes Abraham seem as a less important character and just a vessel to
Starting at the beginning of Stephen’s speech he address the story of Abraham.“The God of glory appeared to our ancestor Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran,and said to him, ‘Leave your country and your relatives and go to the land that I will show you.’”(Acts 7: 2-3) In this passage Stephen does a few things, he leaves of the story of Abraham …show more content…
Leaving out the story of Abraham and Isaac would have kept from the reader/listener the trials that God put Abraham through. Making Abraham take his son, that was only possible because of God, to a mountain and to sacrifice his son to God. The absence of this makes the reading of the story seem more like a quest to spread the religion and populate new lands. It mentions nothing about the trial because at the time people may not have followed a being that was not omnipotent. To help and excuse the lack of detail in the story of Abraham, Stephen also neglects to develop the relationship between God and Abraham. This makes Abraham seem as a less important character and just a vessel to