Stories of Hebrew Heroes

Stories of Hebrew Heroes was published in 1911 by Rufus M. Jones, the Quaker philosopher and writer who taught at Haverford College. It is a retelling of Old Testament narratives, written for the religious education of children and young people in a period when Jones was giving much of his energy to Quaker educational and devotional writing. It is not a work of scholarly commentary or systematic theology. It is a work of storytelling, meant to be read aloud or alone, in which the figures of the Hebrew Bible are presented as persons whose lives show what it looks like to be addressed by God.

Jones follows a long Quaker habit of reading Scripture as the record of living encounters with the divine rather than as a set of propositions to be defended. His retellings treat the patriarchs, judges, prophets and kings as people who hear a call, resist it, wrestle with it and are changed by it. The weight falls on moral and spiritual growth: courage under pressure, honesty before God, faithfulness when the way is unclear. He keeps the narratives close to the biblical accounts while writing in plain, warm prose, and he is more interested in the inner life of his characters than in the historical questions that occupied biblical scholarship in his day. The implicit argument is that these old stories are still instruments of formation, and that a reader, especially a young one, meets in them the same Spirit who spoke to the figures in them.

The book has lasted as an example of an older way of forming the young in the faith, one that trusts narrative to do what instruction alone cannot. It also gives a clear view of the Quaker and liberal Protestant approach to Scripture in the early twentieth century, with its emphasis on experience, character and the continuing presence of God in ordinary human lives. Its prose remains clear and unhurried, and its confidence in the formative power of story speaks to anyone who has found abstract religious teaching thin.

Who should read this: parents, teachers and Sunday school leaders looking for a gentle, character-centered way to introduce Old Testament narratives, and readers of Rufus Jones who want to see his devotional voice at work in a simpler register. It is not for readers seeking critical engagement with the text, historical or archaeological background, or the theological depth of his mature mystical writings.