The Hillel Hoax (The Chosen, season 2 critique)
A dangerous deception is at play in everyone's favorite show about Jesus
Have you read my review of Season 1, and better yet, checked out my reaction to Season 2’s depiction of John the Baptist? Here’s a link:
Choosing traditions
In retelling the story of Jesus Christ, it is inevitable that writers must involve the Pharisees. Jesus repeatedly comments on how the Pharisees were corrupt, wicked, and prevented people from learning the truth. Retellings of the Gospel typically show the Pharisees to be evil, so the question is how The Chosen would depict them, with its odd revisionist tendencies and false claims about “accuracy”. Most Christians probably don’t even realize there are opposing sides in the debate around the Pharisees, or understand the implications of picking one or the other. This article will help you understand the controversy, and where The Chosen fits into it.
Remembering what Jesus said
Before we go further, let’s remember how severely Jesus actually condemned the Pharisees, shall we? All of Matthew 23 is a diatribe against their evil ways, where he says this about them, collectively:
Pharisees are hypocrites, laying heavy burdens on men’s shoulders but are not willing to move a finger to lift them. (v4)
The deeds of the Pharisees are all for men to see; they love places of honor and chief seats, greeting in marketplaces, and being called “Rabbi”. (By the way, Jesus specifically says to call no one “Rabbi” in Matthew 23:8!) (v5-7)
They shut the Kingdom of Heaven in men’s faces, and do not enter it themselves, blocking the path to it. (v13)
They travel across land and sees to make a single convert, but once he becomes one they make him “twice the son of hell” as the Pharisees are. (v15)
They are “blind guides”. (v16)
They pay tithes, but disregard justice, mercy, and faithfulness. (v23)
They clean the outer parts of dishes, but inwardly are full of “greed and self-indulgence”. (v25)
They are “whitewashed tombs”, which look beautiful outwardly but are full of dead men’s bones and every kind of impurity. Likewise, they outwardly appear to be righteous, but inside “you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness”. (v27-28)
They are identified with those who murdered the prophets, and they will do likewise. (v29-32)
They are snakes, broods of vipers, and have little chance to escape hell. (v33)
Jesus will send them prophets, wise men, and teachers so that they can kill, crucify, and punish them, “And so upon you will come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar.” (v34-35)
Surely, anyone who reads these words would realize that the Pharisees were generally despicable, and that Jesus wanted nothing at all to do with them. He was certainly not a Pharisee himself.
However, if you’ve watched the show, you know that The Chosen primarily focuses on Nicodemus, especially in Season 1. He’s the Pharisee described in the Gospel of John, who honors Jesus and ends up helping his burial. In fact, Nicodemus is the one Jesus was speaking to in the famous John 3:16 passage, where Jesus explains his purpose. But we might wonder, where are the wicked Pharisees in the show? The ones Jesus was speaking against? Shouldn’t they be shown as the more common example, since he ends up lumping them all together despite Nicodemus?
Sadducees, Pharisees, “Houses”
I was shocked at what The Chosen promoted in their quest to be “accurate”. They end up pushing one of the most insidious and easily-debunked lies in history. It is the myth of the “two schools” of Pharisaic teachings—between Hillel and Shammai.
If you’ve never heard of this before, allow me to explain. In reality, the ruling class of Israel was divided between the Pharisees and Sadducees. The Sadducees were older, and considered the proper Levitical temple priests, doing the sacrifices and carrying out the important rituals. They had their own soldiers, with the authority to capture, interrogate, and imprison, whereas the Pharisees were closer a civilian party, not actual priests. They acted as legal scholars, scribes, deciding how to interpret the Torah; they came later and were promoted into position of authority by the Romans, which is why they zealously condemned anyone who seemed to go against Roman authority. As Jesus said, the Pharisees traveled far and wide to make “converts”, since they were a special group of intellectuals.
The Sadducees lost their former glory and authority while under the Romans, but they remained detached, entitled, corrupt, and elitist. They were far removed from the daily teachings of the people, while the Pharisees (who loved to be called “Rabbis” or “teachers”) were aggressive liars, working at the street level as a propagandist movement, creating the false traditions Jesus hated, condemning anyone who threatened to upset their control of the commoners. Together, the Sadducee priests and the Pharisee legislative party made up the Sanhedrin, the governing authority over Israel. There was a serious conflict between Sadducees and Pharisees, but no major division among the Pharisees into “Houses”.
Hillel never existed
In Season 2, The Chosen spends a tremendous amount of time exploring Pharisees, but not in accordance with the Bible. Instead, they build up the notion of a clear division among the Pharisees, between the followers of Hillel and the followers of Shammai. This “tradition” comes from the Talmud, which was created by the enemies of Jesus Christ after his death in order to combat the spread of the Gospel and keep Jews subjugated under the Pharisees (who became the “Rabbis”).
Hillel is a fictional character, a myth. He never existed. Neither did Shammai. But if you look up information about them, you will find endless Jewish commentaries treating them like real contemporaries of Jesus Christ, far more important than our Lord in their teachings. Here’s what a Jewish website1 says about Hillel:
Though little has been firmly established about Hillel’s biography by historians, he is said [by the Talmud] to have been born in Babylonia around 110 BCE and died in Jerusalem in the first years of the Common Era.
In fact, Hillel is said to have lived until 120 years old, which is considered the “perfect age” by Jews, because it is the age when Moses died (Deut 31:2) and the span of time God gave mankind before the flood (Gen 6:3). Isn’t it interesting that historians can’t “firmly establish” anything about this Hillel figure, despite such a long and amazing life at this very important period of Jewish history?
In the Midrash compilation Sifre [part of the Talmud], the periods of Hillel's life are made parallel to those in the life of Moses. At the age of forty Hillel went to the Land of Israel; forty years he spent in study; and the last third of his life he was the spiritual head of the Jewish people.
—Wikipedia, explaining the Talmud’s biography on Hillel
What a divine coincidence! Even though nobody mentions him in history, the Talmud insists that this magical “Hillel” character had a life that paralleled that of Moses, their greatest champion and the father of their law. Isn’t it bizarre to have zero mention of this great “spiritual head” of the Jewish people?
According to the Mishnah [Talmud], Hillel went to Jerusalem with the intention of studying biblical exposition and tradition at the age of 40 in 70 BCE. The difficulties Hillel had to overcome to gain admittance to the school of Sh'maya and Abtalion, and the hardships he suffered while pursuing his aim, are told in the Talmud. Some time later, Hillel succeeded in settling a question concerning the sacrificial ritual in a manner that showed his superiority over the Bnei Bathyra, who were at that time the heads of the Sanhedrin. On that occasion, it is narrated, they voluntarily resigned their position as Nasi (President) in favor of Hillel. After their resignation, Hillel was recognized as the highest authority among the Pharisees (predecessors to Rabbinic Judaism).
—Wikipedia, relating the myth of Hillel becoming leader of Israel
Over and over, you will find that the Pharisees (whom Jesus hated, and who arranged for Jesus to be killed) were the direct predecessors of Rabbinic Judaism, who went on to create the very Talmud that invents the “Hillel vs. Shammai” myth. Rabbinic Judaism is fundamentally distinct from Biblical Judaism because it follows the deceitful Talmud instead of the Old Testament. Christians have a hard time believing this because we love Jews and enjoy the idea of Jewish people following Biblical traditions. It pains us to think they are so far from God’s Word and their own roots.
The Bad Apple
Remember, The Chosen endorses the idea of Hillel and Shammai being very real teachers within the Pharisee party; the two “Houses” who disagreed about everything. We are even shown Shammai in the flesh, as a ghoulish and menacing figure plotting to take out Jesus.
After the destruction of the Second Temple (70 AD), the Pharisees took control over the Jewish way of life completely, since the Sadducees were all killed in the struggle against the Romans, defending the Temple. Obviously, this meant the Old Testament laws were impossible to carry out literally. How convenient, then, that their imaginary “Hillel” teacher had shown everyone how to carry the spirit of Torah without the Temple and priests! The Talmud was written centuries later to show how Hillel and Shammai disputed all sorts of things related to the Law, and how Hillel was always correct. This revisionism has planted many Satanic seeds that are still blossoming today, in places like The Chosen.
Without a doubt, The Chosen is pushing the narrative that the “House of Shammai” wanted Jesus dead, but the “House of Hillel” was decent and noble, if only a little bit misguided. In actual fact, as we already pointed out, Jesus condemned Pharisees generally, without distinguishing between two different sects among them, because there weren’t two Houses. Nevertheless, in order to hide their crimes and appease Christians (which began to include wealthy Greeks and Romans, and those with more power than Jews) the Rabbinic Talmud does what it can to distance itself from the supposed “Shammai” philosophy of the Law. The vast majority of Pharisees were Hillel followers, they say, but the House of Shammai were more aggressive and ruthless. Therefore, all of Jesus’ condemnations were against the wicked House of Shammai, leaving the House of Hillel to be innocent and moderate, acceptable to Christians! It was physically impossible for rabbis to insist on strict legalism anymore, so they made up a precedent for somehow being observant Jews during the diaspora, ruling out the need for the Messiah Jesus.
Hundreds of disputes between Hillel and Shammai are recorded in the Talmud, with the House of Hillel generally favoring a more lenient opinion and the House of Shammai favoring a stricter one. The rabbis of the Talmud generally favored the views of the House of Hillel, but in keeping with talmudic tradition, both opinions are recorded in the text.
The House of Shammai is the “bad apple”, or the small exception to the generally good and tolerable House of Hillel, not the rule.
Hillel, the Teacher of Jesus?
The blasphemy goes much further, however. If you notice the timeframe of Hillel’s fictional life, you’ll see that he was the ruling intellectual for decades, immediately before the birth of Jesus. Hillel supposedly died while Jesus was a child, overlapping during Christ’s crucial developmental years, when he would be studying the Scriptures and speaking to the elders about it. The House of Shammai came afterward, and would have been dominant during Jesus’ adulthood, you see. That’s why The Chosen shows the Shammai character sitting in a position of some power, scheming against Jesus during his lifetime.
God endorses Rabbi Hillel directly!
According to a famous passage in the tractate Eruvin, the disciples of Hillel and Shammai argued for years saying the law was in accordance with their views. Ultimately a divine voice proclaimed: “Both these are the words of the living God. However, the halachah [Jewish law] is in accordance with the opinion of Beit Hillel.” The Talmud goes on to note that the law follows the views of Hillel’s disciples precisely because they were “agreeable and forbearing.”2
Now do you see the utter madness of this Satanic tradition? The blasphemy? Here, the Talmud teaches that a divine voice came from heaven and proclaimed that, somehow, the teachings of Hillel and Shammai who constantly disagreed with each other were both “the words of the living God” (an idiotic paradox) but that Hillel was the true teacher of God’s Law! Therefore, we know the implication: what could Jesus do except obey and follow the teachings of Hillel, the true voice of God?
Perhaps the most well-known of Hillel’s statements is this: “If I am not for me, who will be for me? And when I am for myself alone, what am I? And if not now, then when?”3
Talmudic Dogwhistle
Notice how subtly the famous saying of Hillel was incorporated into The Chosen, during the Season 2 finale episode, right before Jesus is about to go give his famous Sermon on the Mount to the masses. At no point during the series so far have the writers bothered to explain this famous saying of Hillel, or shown that Jesus was studying Hillel’s declarations about the Law, but much like how the subtle, snake-like incorporation of Mother Mary’s magical power to make requests of Jesus was added to appease Catholics, here we have the famous words being spoken by Jesus and Mary to each other, dogwhistling to Rabbinic Judaism that their Christian show considers their anti-Christian fairytale real, and that Jesus was a follower of their mythological Hillel hero, repeating his famous phrase when he was the most under pressure.
Don’t imagine that this is idle speculation, either. As I found out again and again on TikTok, the “Torah Observers” very directly argue that Jesus was an imitator of Hillel, and that everything Hillel taught was endorsed by Jesus Christ. They say Jesus was essentially just a guy who came by and promoted Hillel’s doctrine during the reign of Shammai, and that the Shammai Pharisees were the only ones Jesus had a problem with. This is why they believe you need to keep the Sinai covenant, and take on the yoke of the Moses Law instead of being liberated by Jesus Christ:
Conclusion
Hillel’s famous sayings have been widely quoted and adopted. “If not now, when,” was the title of a book by Primo Levi and an album from the American rock band Incubus. IfNotNow was adopted by the name of an organization fighting to end American Jewish support for Israeli policies that harm the Palestinians.
As you can see, this is a famous saying even in modern Judaism. Only the ignorant Christians would miss it, being uninformed about the long history of deception stemming from the Pharisees and their Rabbinic offspring.
There is no excuse for any Christian indulging the Hillel Hoax, especially if they claim to be striving for “accuracy”. When Dallas Jenkins and the show writers claim…
one, that this show accurately captures Scripture and the events surrounding it; and two, that we enhance the impact of the story with facts and meaning that you might not be aware of…
They are misleading their audience, or are severely misled themselves. God knows the truth. I only know that The Chosen is steadily injecting many heresies into their programming, and they need to be called out.
MyJewishLearning.com
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/hillel/
Also quoted from the same MyJewishLearning website.
What do you think of The Chosen after learning this?
I don’t know but curious Terry why you haven’t replied to Andrew’s comment ?