Better the Torah Be Burned?

I have written before about the line in the Yerushlami where Rav Eliezer declares that better the Torah be burned than given to women:

אמר ליה ישרפו דברי תורה ואל ימסרו לנשים

 Ever since I came across another curious line in the Talmud that references to "burning the Torah", I began to suspect there is something to this phrase. See Shabbat 115b, and Tosefta Shabbat 13:4 as well:

תנו רבנן: הברכות והקמיעין, אף על פי שיש בהן אותיות של שם, ומעניינות הרבה שבתורה - אין מצילין אותן מפני הדליקה, אלא נשרפים במקומן הן ואזכרותיהן.  

מכאן אמרו: כותבי ברכות כשורפי תורה.

Our Rabbis taught: Benedictions and amulets, though they contain letters of the [Divine] Name and many passages of the Torah, must not be rescued from a fire but must be burnt where they lie, they together with their Names.

Hence it was said, They who write down Benedictions are as though they burnt a Torah.

Writing berachot is like burning Torah, because of the possible situation (not too uncommon in the ancient world) that it would end up being burnt, with God's name in it.

There is an interesting addition to this in Yalkut Shemoni Tzav 481:

ואי משכח גברא כתב אגרתא והאמר רבי אבא בריה דר' חייא בר אבא אמר רבי יוחנן כותבי ספרים כשורפי תורה והלומד מהם אין לו קבול שכר, דדרש ר' יהודה בר נחמן מתורגמניה דר"ש בן לקיש כתוב א' אומר כתב לך את הדברים האלה וכתוב אחד אומר כי על פי הדברים האלה לומר לך דברים שבעל פה אי אתה רשאי לאמרם בכתב ושבכתב אי אתה רשאי לאמרם על פה, אמרי מילתא חדתא שאני דהא ר' יוחנן וריש לקיש מעייני באגדתא בשבתא ודרשי הכי עת לעשות לה' הפרו תורתך מוטב תעקר אות א' מן התורה ואל תשתכח תורה מישראל

And if one forgets, he can write it on parchment. But doesn't R' Aba the son of R' Hiyya bar Aba say in in the name of R' Yochanan:  One who writes books is like he who burns the Torah, and one who learns from them gets no reward. For R' Yehudah bar Nachman, the translator of R' Shimon ben Lakish expounded one verse that says "Write for yourself these words, " and another verse says "These words should be by heart." This teaches you that words which are by heart are not allowed to be said in writing, and those which are in writing are not allowed to be said by heart. [So why can you write down the nesachim one forgets?] A sharp matter, is different. For R' Yochanan and Resh Lakish would delve into aggada on the Sabbath, and they expounded thusly: "A time to do for God, break your Torah" - it is better you uproot one letter of the Torah, rather than the Torah be forgotten in Israel."

We can see from this context that "one who burns Torah" is someone who doesn't follow the rules on how to learn it, eschewing the doctrine of not writing down the Oral Law, except in certain cases. Although in the context of Shabbat, it would seem (as per Rashi there) that writing blessings with God's name is like burning the Torah because if a fire happened, it couldn't be saved, this has nothing to do with that context!

It seems to me that "let the Torah be burned" is Rabbi Elazar saying that he is not following the proper rules of how to disseminate Torah! He really should be willing to teach Torah to women, yet he is making himself like someone who "burns the Torah". Why was that? It could be that its the same reason as not writing down the Oral law. The reason for not writing down the Oral law could have been manifold, but it seems that the focus was that the Oral law should be kept among the elite through extreme memorization - unable to be misunderstood, if kept carefully with select teachers. Unfortunately, by the time of the Mishna, this aspect was useless since so many "elite" people did not carefully keep it. Related to this, keeping it Oral kept a sacredness about it because it was closed off to the public.

If so, perhaps the reason why R' Eliezer was against teaching women Torah. One is that the woman was somehow asking a particularly disrespectful question - she was trying to bring down the sacredness. Even were this not so, women in the ancient world were not considered so smart or capable, and so if one taught women Torah, the Torah would lose its sacredness. Additionally, she could misunderstand what she learned because historically and sociologically, she was not trained in learning. Lastly, it would cause the Oral law to be spread out among the non-elite, especially women who were not able or considered capable of being part of that elite class.

However, we might say that this would not at all apply today. Now that the Torah is written down, and now that all have access if they want, both men and women, there is no reason to "burn the Torah".