Tool Alpha
The Contradiction Desk
Claimed Bible contradictions, stated the way they circulate, each with one diagnosis and the evidence for it: the Hebrew, the Greek, the manuscripts.
Seventy, or seventy-five?
Genesis counts seventy of Jacob's family going down to Egypt. Stephen in Acts says seventy-five. Stephen's number is in the Septuagint and in two Hebrew copies from Qumran.
Acts 7:14, in every translation this tool compares.
The real question: did Stephen get the count wrong? One guest list counts the couple who arrived late, and the other does not. Which list is wrong, if either?
Genesis 46:27, Exodus 1:5 and Deuteronomy 10:22 say seventy. Stephen, in Acts 7:14, says Jacob came down with his kindred, seventy-five souls.
The CSB's textual note at Genesis 46:27 says the Septuagint reads 75 and points to Acts 7:14. The ESV Study Bible says the Septuagint raises the number of Joseph's sons from two to nine and so totals Jacob's descendants in Egypt as 75, and concludes that the Hebrew manuscript tradition the translators worked from was apparently not unanimous. The NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible says two Qumran Hebrew texts also read seventy-five. Stephen, preaching to Greek speakers, used the count in the Bible they used.
Then sent Joseph, and called his father Jacob to him, and all his kindred, threescore and fifteen souls.
The Skeptic's Annotated Bible asks "How many were in Jacob's family when they came into Egypt?" and lists 70 at Genesis 46:27, Exodus 1:5 and Deuteronomy 10:22 against 75 at Acts 7:14. At full strength: a speech presented as inspired Scripture gives a number the Hebrew Bible does not.
MacArthur says the 75 includes five more people born in Egypt, added in the Septuagint reading: two sons of Manasseh, two of Ephraim and a grandson of Ephraim. The ESV Study Bible on Acts 7:14 says the texts arrive at different totals by different decisions about whom to count, including Jacob and his wife and the later descendants of Ephraim and Manasseh.
The variant shows where 75 came from. It does not say which count is right, and the ESV Study Bible warns that the numbers in Genesis 46 should be treated with caution, since the chapter itself gives 66 and 70 in successive verses and 70 may be a round figure. Whether Luke presents Stephen as endorsing the Septuagint's count or simply reporting his speech is not settled by the variant.
Not a claim that Stephen invented a number. The figure was already in Greek and Hebrew copies before him.
- CSB Study Bible, textual note on Genesis 46:27
- ESV Study Bible, notes on Genesis 46:26-27 and Acts 7:14
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, note on Acts 7:14
- The MacArthur Study Bible (ESV), notes on Genesis 46:27 and Acts 7:14
- The Skeptic's Annotated Bible, How many were in Jacob's family when they came into Egypt?, https://skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/jacobs_clan.html
- King James Version, Genesis 46:27 and Acts 7:14
