Epistles 'scriptural' ?

[The Lector]

Peace Dudes,

I have been discussing the issue of the epistles in the ktaba qadisha/bible, and wanted some opinions from you as to what actually constitutes 'scripture', and also, what the COE reckons on this. Here is what the debater told me:

... the reason why those verses are not often quoted by Christians is because Romans is not part of the scripture.

Romans is one of a number of Epistle documents that are placed at the back of the Bible. An Epistle document means a church document released for public viewing.

Romans is just a letter sent from Paul in his own words, to a Roman congregation.

There are a number of such Epistle documents at the back of the bible, and they are all clearly marked as being Epistle documents. Some others are Hebrews, Titus, Peter, Timothy etc...

Anything that comes under the sub heading of Epistle documents are documents released from the church archives for public viewing only and are not part of the scripture.

Following this, as he mentioned the 'back of the bible', I asked about the place of revelation thus [i know that this is not part of the original peshitta]

Yes Revelations is part of the scripture.

Rev 1:1 The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who testifies to everything he saw--that is, the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ.

It is a book of prophecies "what must soon take place"

Some of the prophecies in Revelations seem to be the same as the prophecies of Daniel in the OT, but from a different angle.

But there is one key difference to the book of Daniel. In the prophecies of Daniel, Daniel is told to seal up the book of prophecy because the time was not yet near Dan 12:4. But in Revelations, John is told NOT to seal up the scroll (Rev 22:10) because the prophecies are near or soon to start to unfold.

Rev 22:19 And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.

It is placed last because it is in chronological order.

The Scripture is the O.T, the gospels, Acts and Revelations.

So what of the epistles then? Are they part of the ktab/scripture or not? <!-- s --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/sleepy.gif" alt="" title="Sleepy" /><!-- s -->