The issue should not be oversimplified into whether people will live by God’s word or mere human teaching. Given this choice, all religious people will choose “God’s word.” But for all sides of the debate, God’s word is not available directly, only through human mediation.

The issue is actually dual: (1) Which words of Moses mediate God’s word, only the written words of Scripture or the oral words handed on in tradition? (2) How are these words to be interpreted? All words, written and oral, must be interpreted before they can be understood and obeyed. All groups that claim to adhere to “the Bible alone” in fact have a tradition that gives it meaning.

In this conflict of traditions and interpretations, members of each group tend to identify their own traditions and interpretations with the Bible as word of God and to denigrate those of their opponents as merely human traditions.

Thus any community that honors Scripture as representing the word of God must also attend to its own understanding of tradition and interpretation.

from The People’s New Testament Commentary