Stephen’s defense in Acts 7 has interesting variants which would lead one to suspect that it derives from a sectarian group of Jews. In vv 30-41 much is made of the greatness of Moses, reminding one of the work of Jesus ben-Sirach and II Baruch, in which much is made of the ancient human heroes of Israel in contrast to the old recitals of God’s works in which human agency is scarcely mentioned. Verse 45, referring to the tent (tabernacle) of the wilderness wanderings of Israel, says most uncharacteristically that Israel’s fathers with Joshua brought it “when they dispossessed the nations whom God drove out before our fathers . . .” (Robert G. Boling and G. Ernest Wright, Joshua: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary [AB 6; New York: Doubleday, 1982], 13 n. 10, emphasis added)
Further Reading