What visions did Stephen see before he died?

Answer 1

Stephen needed courage to face what lay ahead, and he no doubt received much encouragement from the vision that Jehovah then kindly granted him. Stephen saw God's glory, and he saw Jesus standing at His Father's right hand! As Stephen described the vision, his judges put their hands over their ears. Why? Earlier, Jesus had told that same court that he was the Messiah and that he would soon be at his Father's right hand. (Mark 14:62) Stephen's vision proved that Jesus spoke the truth. That Sanhedrin had, in fact, betrayed and murdered the Messiah! With one accord, they rushed to have Stephen stoned to death

Answer 2

Acts 7:55-56 says that the heavens opened and Stephen was able to look up and see Jesus standing at the right hand of God. This is not described in Acts as a vision, but as an actual event, thus providing proof that heaven is a physical place just above earth, just as the ancients believed.

We now know that, whatever and wherever heaven is, it is not really a physical place just above earth. It has been proposed that the Stephen story was formed by the author of Acts on the basis of models he found in the Septuagint (LXX). Shelly Matthews wrote a cameo essay on Stephen, published in Acts and Christian Beginnings, in which she points out that Stephen is not attested in any ancient source outside Acts until Irenaeus, who relied on Acts for his information about Stephen. She says it is impossible to verify whether Stephen really existed as a historical person around whom the story was written, or whether the character of Stephen was actually created for this story.