"... Was there a first call in Ur? One problem involved an apparent discrepancy between Genesis 12:1 and Stephen’s speech in the New Testament book of Acts. In his speech to the Jews, Stephen reminded them how, before God settled Abraham in Harran, he had told him to “go forth from thy country and from thy kindred and come into that land that I will show you” (7:2). But this was difficult to square with Genesis’ notice that the call to Abraham occurred only after he and the other members of his family had already migrated to Harran. A typical harmonizing reading of Acts and Genesis postulated two calls, the first to Abraham in Ur pace Acts, the second pace Genesis after he was already residing in Harran. But what were the actual circumstances of this first call? And if the call had been to Abraham only, why had Terah and the other members of his family accompanied him as far as Harran? This is where chronographers enlisted the aid of Jubilees. There is no explicit reference in Jubilees to a divine call to Abraham when he was still in Ur. It does, however, record a chain of fateful events bringing Abraham into escalating conflict with his father’s practice of idolatry. ..."

"... Abram’s prayer elicited a divine response, the first part of which (verses 22-23) is a rewritten form of Genesis 12:1-3. Jubilees, by supplementing the sparse givens of Genesis 11:26-32 with the stories in 11:17-12:21, contextualizes the call of Abram far more fully than Genesis does. In fact, Genesis really does not explain it at all. Seemingly for no reason apart from the Lord’s good pleasure, he summons this one man into a special relationship. In Jubilees Abram has by this time already had a distinguished career, had come to a special relationship with the deity, and was at the very moment seeking God’s guidance for the future. The words of summons and blessing are an answer to the prayer of the most righteous man on the earth, the only one who recognizes and worships the one true God. It is no wonder that God sent his message to him. A surprise in the passage is that, where Genesis 12:1 says the Lord spoke to Abram, Jubilees 12:22 says “then the word of the Lord was sent to him through me,” that is, through the Angel of the Presence who is dictating the story to Moses on Mount Sinai. The deity in this instance remains one step removed from immediate contact with Abram. ..."

"... God’s promise to Abram in Genesis concerned land and seed, but Luke’s and Stephen’s canonical reading would view this promise (especially regarding the ultimate seed, 13:23; see comment on Acts 3:26) as partly already fulfilled in God’s kingdom through the Davidic ruler. This promise of the land was delayed through the people’s rejection of Moses (compare Acts 7:42, 45); hence the kingdom and Israel’s rule over its own land could be likewise delayed through their rejection of the prophet like Moses (compare 7:37, 52). The quote here is almost exactly the same as in Genesis 12:1 Septuagint except for the omission of a statement about Abram leaving his father’s house. This omission would not seem significant except for Acts 7:4’s emphasis that he waited until his father’s death, having received the call earlier (see comment on Acts 7:4). This might emphasize that God allowed Abraham to wait, which would make even longer the time of God’s faithfulness outside the land. The omission might also respond to apologetic concerns, emphasizing submission to the paterfamilias, but it could have been omitted simply to conserve space. ..."