According to this decision, it is absolutely forbidden to teach a woman the oral law; and the teaching of it is looked upon as the teaching of transgression תיפלות. We cannot forbear asking the advocates of the oral law, whether it does not here testify against itself that it is bad. It declares of itself that it is unfit for the perusal and study of the pure female mind, and that it is as corrupting as the teaching of transgression. We ask, then, can such a law be divine? Can it proceed from the God of Israel, who hath said, “Be ye holy, for I am holy?” What a noble testimony to the superiority of the written Word, and to the justice of the Lord Jesus Christ’s opposition to the oral law! The oral law itself says, “He that teacheth his daughter the oral law, is to be considered as if he taught her transgression. He that teacheth her the written law, is not to be so considered.” With such a confession, we fearlessly ask the sons and daughters of Israel, who then was in the right? Jesus of Nazareth, who opposed it, or the scribes and Pharisees who defended it? But “the wise men” also forbid Israelites to teach women the written law, and declare that women are not bound to learn. For the prohibition they assign two reasons. First, they say that God has commanded them to teach only their sons, in proof of which they refer to Deut. xi. 19, “And ye shall teach them your children.” In the Hebrew it is בניכם “your sons;” and the rabbies infer ולא את בנותיכם, “and not your daughters.”[4] Secondly, they say, as we have seen above, “that the majority of women have not got minds fitted for study,” and in the Talmud[5] this is attempted to be proved from Scripture. “A wise woman once asked R. Eliezer, How it was that after the sin of the golden calf, those who were alike in transgressions did not all die the same death? He replied, A woman’s wisdom is only for the distaff, as it is written, ‘All the women that were wise-hearted did spin with their hands.’” (Exod. xxxv. 25.) We hesitate not to say, that both these reasons are contrary to Scripture. We do not deny that בניכם signifies sons, but we utterly deny the conclusion of the Rabbies, that because the masculine word is used, therefore the women are not included in the command. There is an abundance of instances in which the masculine word בנים is used for children generally, without any allusion to sex. Take for example Exod. xxii. 23 (in the English 24), “And my wrath shall wax hot, and I will kill you with the sword; and your wives shall be widows, and your children בניכם (literally your sons) orphans.” Here again the masculine word is used, so that if the Rabbinical argument be valid in the above case, it will be valid here, and consequently the daughters are excluded from this denunciation, so that the sons were to be orphans, but not the daughters, which is plainly impossible. In the same way we can prove that the daughters of Israel did not wander in the wilderness forty