ABSTRACT
The rabbis' Pharisees are mostly figures of the late Herodian and Roman periods. Having shown how and why nearly all former efforts to use rabbinic traditions about pre-70 C. E. Pharisaism for historical purposes are primitive. The rabbis' Pharisaic conflict-stories, moreover, do not tell of Pharisees' opposing Essenes, Christians, or Sadducees, but of Hillelites' opposing Shammaites. Nearly all narratives about Shammai form part of the Hillelite polemic: Shammai is represented as subordinated to the authority of "the sages"; his precedents are made into private preferences without legal weight. The Hillelite indictment of Shammai and his House primarily pertains to non-legal matters. In legal pericopae Shammai and Hillel are treated as equals, just as are their Houses. Shammai and Hillel appear together in a few legal pericopae, in which the two are balanced, with equal respect paid to each — and also otherwise, in polemical materials directed against Shammai and his House.
