Produced by Heiko Evermann, Hazel Batey, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net; scanned by Fox in the Stars from the collection of Brays Advent Christian Church in Iberia, Missouri CONSTRUCTIVE BIBLE STUDIES EDITED BY ERNEST D. BURTON HEROES OF ISRAEL THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS CHICAGO, ILLINOIS Agents THE BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY NEW YORK THE CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON AND EDINBURGH [Illustration: THE SEMITIC WORLD] HEROES OF ISRAEL TEXT OF THE HERO STORIES WITH NOTES AND QUESTIONS FOR YOUNG STUDENTS _By_ THEODORE GERALD SOARES _Professor of Homiletics and Religious Education in the_ _University of Chicago_ THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS CHICAGO, ILLINOIS COPYRIGHT 1908 BY THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO All Rights Reserved Published January 1909 Second Impression September 1909 Third Impression December 1909 Second Edition October 1911 Composed and Printed By The University of Chicago Press Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. TO MY FATHER MY FIRST HERO PREFACE It is the purpose to present these Hero Studies in two books, one being the present volume which is intended as a textbook for the students, the other being the teacher's manual with fuller explanations and suggestions. The necessary prefatory statements will be found in the respective books under the titles "Foreword to the Student" and "Foreword to the Teacher". This volume contains the text of the stories, with explanatory notes and questions intended to stimulate study. Each lesson consists of a complete story arranged in such a way as to impress the main features of the narrative clearly upon the student's mind. The explanatory material is reduced to the minimum, since the main desire is to let the stories speak for themselves and not to burden the student with wearisome details. The three reviews divide the course into the three natural parts, the first extending to Christmas, the second to the end of March, the third, which is shorter, to the middle of June, when it is usually wise for the regular courses to end. The text of the British Revisers is used in the reprint of the stories with the consent and approval of the Oxford and Cambridge University presses. As the plan of simplifying the narratives involved certain verbal changes, it has seemed wise to go a step farther and to use the spellings which would be more familiar to American students. For constant suggestions as to form and method I am greatly indebted to my wife, who has taught the lessons from advance sheets to a class of boys. It is a pleasure to acknowledge the valuable counsel of Professor E. D. Burton, the editor of the series, and especially that of Professor J. M. P. Smith, who at Professor Burton's request, and to my own great satisfaction, assumed the editorial responsibility of reading the manuscript, and gave me the benefit of his ripe scholarship and judgment.