Who was Hillel?
Who was Jesus? Although many scholars are pursuing these questions today, another significant question has received less attention: How does what we know of Jesus help to clarify Hillel, and vice versa? Can what we know about these traditions bring further light to each set of traditions? Ultimately, are we not thereby better informed about the historical persons behind those traditions? The task of answering the above questions is fraught with both promise and challenge. Such a comparison of traditions requires all the work of tradition criticism. And tradition criticism itself stands on the shoulders of the array of historical-critical methodologies that have properly come to characterize attempts to recover the “historical Hillel” and the “historical Jesus.” But even further considerations complicate the project. Historically, such projects have been charged with hidden theological agenda; namely, to demonstrate the superiority of one of these historical figures (and derivatively, o
