Stephen’s Mistake? Part 2
In my last post, I set up one of the proposed “contradictions” of Scripture. Stephen claims Abraham bought a particular plot of land while the Old Testament claims it was Jacob. Who was right? Doesn’t this destroy innerancy?
There is, in fact, a simple answer which requires no great exegetical stretch. It is perfectly possible that both Abraham and Jacob bought this same plot of land. It is highly possible that Jacob repurchased for his family that which Abraham had bought years before. A similar case concerning the well of Beersheba strongly supports this possibility. In this similar case, there are separate accounts describing how both Abraham and Isaac secured the land which contained the well. Genesis 21:27-30 tells how Abraham purchased from Abimelech the rights to the property upon which the well was dug. Apparently, this land was abandoned by Abraham and his family and was reclaimed by the inhabitants of the land. Genesis 26:17-31 tells of the deal made by Isaac with Abimelech many years later in order to have rights to this land once again. Here, then, is a clear case of the same piece of property being secured by both Abraham and one of his descendants.
Regarding Stephen’s reference to Abraham’s purchase of the land at Shechem, it is certainly reasonable that Stephen had knowledge of some oral tradition not contained in the Old Testament scriptures in which Abraham purchased this land. We know Abraham certainly stopped there and erected an altar (Gen 12:6-7). It would be logical for Abraham to purchase this land at that time. When Jacob arrived on the land many years later, it was necessary to repurchase the land that had been long abandoned.
I think this apparent contradiction, which in the end is easily explained, illustrates some important principles: The critic should not be too quick to cry, “Contradiction!â€, and the believer should not panic or be troubled when the critic flaunts this or some other supposed contradiction in scripture. Most of the time there is a simple way of reconciling the “contradictory†passages. Although some do create difficult challenges, many times a straightforward harmonization is attainable, as seen in the example above. As in a court of law, a book’s testimony should be presumed truthful until proven otherwise. To approach Scripture in any other way would be to do a disservice to a book that has proven to be a remarkably reliable transmitter of historical events and places.