We must ask why different tales emerge, and what accounts for the diversity within what is reported by tradition. The systematic examination of all relevant sources, including their literary, hermeneutical, and ideological dimensions, is what makes this a critical exercise. In most cases, as this study will make apparent, what we encounter is the image of the sage as it is worked out through the different layers of tradition and their various intellectual designs, including hermeneutical and ideological. Only by appreciating the common cultural concerns that are projected onto the historical person can we begin to approach the historical reality of these writers. Though this may be far less than what is usually expected in a life or biography, perhaps we should not limit our perspective to an apology for the lack of proper biography in rabbinic literature.
Recent discussions have highlighted how culturally conditioned the western notion of biography is.
Rabbinic culture allows us to consider the manner in which a collective cultural ethos shapes the narration of an individual life. That this tale may have little to do with historical reality and could not be considered a biography is a point to which a major portion of the present study is devoted. However, having granted this point, we may reflect on the relevance of the rabbinic stories to a broader theory of biography. Thus, while I acknowledge that in the strictest sense we cannot speak of rabbinic biographies in a collective culture, the specific cultural situation in which these lives are told may challenge our notion of what it means to write about a life. If, as Leon Edel notes, writing about a life requires the imposition of structure and meaning on the facts told, then cultural and group values must influence the way in which the life of the individual is presented or constructed.