In any case, we may assume that between 70 and 135 the situation remained far more fluid than the later rabbinic traditions admit. Had the house of Hillel prevailed as thoroughly as those writings suggest, there would have been no support for bar-Kochba’s rebellion. As it was, it was supported by Akiba himself, who in retrospect is perhaps the greatest transitional figure of them all: clearly standing in the line of the politically active and revolutionary-minded Pharisees from the days of the Hasmoneans and Herod, he is then looked back to and reverenced as a great Torah-teacher by those who,
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