This is an excerpt from an article by R’ Yitzchak Breitowitz (the italics are mine):
This would simply be a standard presentation of a talmudic dispute if not for the statement of the gemara in Eiruvin 13 saying that Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Nehorai are the same person!
[and still learn Torah seriously]? What will become of the Torah? Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai is forced to limit the verse to when the Jews are not serving G-d properly and must fend for themselves agriculturally.