You wrote:
“Don’t forget that before there was the Bible, there was the church. It was teaching, preaching, baptizing, marrying, etc.”
Agreed.
“It came to know God. Thus, tradition was born.”
Wouldn’t be better to say the Church came FROM God. He established the Church. And Tradition was not so much born as it was passed on to the Church.
“The Bible did not become available to the middle class until the 1500s. Thus, it is not unexpected that the church believes in certain non-biblical concepts because it preceded the Bible.”
Protestantism, stemming from the German and Dutch middle class of the 16th century did, in fact, adopt and foster a number of “non-biblical concepts”.
The Church really has none.
“The church is the Bride of Christ and was so before there was a canon.”
Agreed.
and this was due in part to efforts of the Catholic Church to keep it out of the hands of the people.