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Think of it this way- mainstream Judaism can show that its beliefs have held constant for the last 3500 years, and have been explicitly written down since the 2ND century went he Mishnah was first written down. Karaite Judaism only dates back to the 8Th century and their written works only start a couple of centuries after that!
Where does mainstream Judaism get its beliefs from?
Matrilineal descent is learned from the Torah and we see it being explicitly applied in the Tanakh. We learn it from the Torah in Devarim (Deuterenomy) Chapter 7
. You shall not intermarry with them; you shall not give your daughter to his son, and you shall not take his daughter for your son. ?. S's ?????????? ???? ???????? ??? ?????? ??????? ???????? ??? ?????? ????????:
4. For he will turn away your son from following Me, and they will worship the gods of others, and the wrath of the Lord will be kindled against you, and He will quickly destroy you. ?. ???? ?????? ??? ??????? ????????? ????????? ????????? ???????? ??????? ??? ????????? ?????? ?????????????? ?????:
Now, verse 3 explictly states that neither Jewish men or women can marry non-Jews. However, in verse 4 there is a concern that the husband of the Jewish woman will entice the children into leaving Judaism, but there is no reciprocal concern that the wife of a Jewish man will entice the children out of Judaism- why not? The children are not Jewish. Rashi addresses this here in his commentary on the Torah and it is discussed in the Talmud in masechta Kiddushin daf 68b.
Where do we learn this from in the Tanakh? In Sefer Ezra (the Book of Ezra) in Ketuvim, we read the following in chapter 10 (see the chapter further for details):
3. And now, let us make a covenant with our God to cast out all the wives and their offspring, by the counsel of the Lord and those who hasten to [perform] the commandment of our God, and according to the Law it shall be done.
AND
10. And Ezra the priest arose and said to them, ?You have dealt treacherously, and you have taken in foreign wives to add to Israel?s guilt. ?.
11. And now, confess to the Lord, the God of your forefathers, and do His will, and separate from the peoples of the land and from the foreign wives.? ??.
12. Then the entire congregation replied and said in a loud voice: ?Yes! We must do as you say!
AND
16. The people of the exile did so. Ezra the priest [and certain] men, heads of the fathers? houses after the house of their fathers, separated themselves, all of them [known] by name, and they convened on the first day of the tenth month to investigate the matter. ??.
17. And they completed everything concerning the men who had brought in foreign women, until the first day of the first month.
Now, we read that the men put the wives AND their children from those wives aside. The wives it can be easily understood that they were not Jewish- after all, it was only the non-Jewish women they were required to seperate from. The children are not explicitly stated. So why would the men seperate from them? If they were Jewish, they would be obligated to educate them as Jews, something that would be difficult to impossible if the children were put aside! The answer to that, is that these children were not Jewish and thus there was no obligation to educate them, or to bring them up as Jews!
Another less direct source goes even further back- to the time of Avraham! Where do we see that? Avraham had three wives and eight children. hagar was an Egyptian and idol worshiper- ishmael is not seen as Jewish. Keturah is not seen as being a complete follower of Avraham's religious views and her children are not Jewish. Sarah is the only one of the three wives who completely absorbs Avraham's faith and worships G-d in the same manner as he does- her son Yitzchak IS Jewish. Now, all eight children have the same father - btu only one mother is considered Jewish, and only her son and his descendants are considered Jewish! Thus we can see that even in the time of Avraham, the father did not dictate the religion of the child, but the mother. If it had been the father, then all eight would have been the patriarchs of the Jewish faith!
We see this with the two children of Yitzchak as well. Esav marries women that are not acceptable, that are idol worshippers - Ya'akov marries righteous women who takes up his beliefs and worships G-d as a Jewess. None of the children of Esav are considered Jewish- the children of Ya'akov are considered Jewish since his wives had all converted to Judaism! again- it is the stauts of the mother that confers Jewishness to the children- not the status of the father!
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Kara'im Jews say Judaism's passed through the father. Mainstream Jews say the mother.
