‘Catholics make that the NT was transcribed from oral tradition some 400 years after the death of Christ.’
I find this hard to believe. So according to this theory the early Christians destroyed the letters from Paul, Peter, John, etc, and then tried to remember what was in the letters they destroyed? It never occurred to them to make copies of these precious apostolic epistles?
My willing suspension of disbelief just got stretched past the breaking point.
I would expect that the VERY FIRST thing they did was make copies of the letters.
Would it be expensive and time consuming?
Sure, but not as bad as they’d like us to think.
If I decided to hand copy the book of Colossians, it would take a few hours.
I’ll bet I could get it done in a day. It’s not that long of a book.