Acts 7:14

And Joseph sent, and called to him Jacob his father, and all his kindred, threescore and fifteen souls. And Jacob went down into Egypt; and he died, himself and our fathers; and they were carried over unto Shechem, and laid in the tomb that Abraham bought for a price in silver of the sons of Hamor in Shechem.

Threescore and fifteen souls ... This number has been seized upon as a contradiction of Genesis 46:27 which gives the number as "threescore and ten." But as George DeHoff observed:

Jacob's children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren amounted to sixty-six (Genesis 46:8-26). Adding Jacob himself and Joseph with his two sons, we have seventy. If to the sixty-six we add the nine wives of Jacob's sons (Judah's and Simeon's wives were dead; and Joseph could hardly be said to call himself, his own wife or his two sons into Egypt, and Jacob is specifically separated by Stephen) we have seventy-five persons as in Acts.[9]

Jewish genealogies did not regard women, or even count them; and such an attitude was noted during Jesus' public ministry, and for some time within the church itself, when, for example, the number partaking of the loaves and fishes was given as "five thousand men, besides the women and children," and when the number of disciples was stated as "five thousand men" (Acts 4:4). It was appropriate that in this inspired speech of Stephen the women should have been reckoned among the number going down into Egypt with Jacob. Thus there is logic in Stephen's following a different system of numbering; and another pseudocon bites the dust.

Tomb that Abraham bought ... This is said to contradict Joshua 24:32, where it is stated that "Jacob bought (a field) of the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem." However, as DeHoff pointed out, there were three separate transactions.

(1) Abraham bought a cave and field in which it stood (Genesis 23:17). (2) Abraham bought another sepulchre, but it is not stated that he bought the field in which it stood (Acts 7:15,16). (3) Years later, Jacob bought a parcel of ground (Joshua 24:32) or a parcel of a field (Genesis 33:19). This was, in all probability, the very field in which Abraham's second sepulchre stood, as this field once belonged to the same owners though they may have been miles apart.

In all the Bible nothing can be found to contradict any of these statements; and it is amazing to me that even some Christians make labored efforts to "harmonize these difficulties." I always ask, "What difficulties?"[10]

(ii)

[9] George DeHoff, Alleged Bible Contradictions Explained (Murfreesboro, Tennessee: DeHoff Publications, p. 275.

[10] Ibid., p. 232.