But it’s still tradition — passing the Word from one person to another orally.
No, tradition is not merely oral communication.
When I relate an event that happened to me yesterday to someone, that does not make it a tradition.
That would be orally teaching what the apostles taught. Catholics have NOT proven that what they teach is what the apostles taught.
. Catholics appear to have taken the verse in John regarding the fact that not all things Jesus did have been written down to take license and invent new teachings. Note this limitation would only apply to the things of Jesus.
It is also assumed by cathloicism that other teachings, while not written down, happened and that these must be accepted. This goes against Paul's exhortation to test the spirits and the Bereans searching the Scriptures.
. A lot of catholicism's non-Biblical teachings cannot be tested in his manner and must be discarded for this reason.
there is also the steadfast refusal to consider context and word usage, especially the Greek and Hebrew, in studying the Word. This leads to distortion and false doctrine as we've seen.