The Bible itself never claims to be the sole rule of faith. In fact, Paul tells the Thessalonians to 'hold fast to the traditions you were taught, whether by an oral statement or by a letter of ours' (2 Thessalonians 2:15), placing spoken apostolic teaching on equal footing with written text. The Church existed for decades before the New Testament was written, and it was the Church's Tradition that determined which books belonged in the Bible in the first place (CCC 120). Scripture and Tradition are not competing authorities; they flow from the same divine source and are entrusted to the same living Church for authentic interpretation (CCC 80-82).