For argument's sake - Let's assume the Bible's stories

Judaism is a joke. Nothing excuses them from the laws laid down by God in Leviticus. With out the Lamb, they should still be following those laws and making animal sacrifices when they break them.

 

I think there is plenty of evidence to suggest that is not true. "Bad Guys" can and do win in real life.

 

Short or long term?

 

Both, if atheism is true. The idea of karma, or "what goes around comes around" tends to be mostly true. But I haven't seen enough consistency to call it an absolute.

 

I'm not discussing atheism.

I have a really difficult time imagining a world without consequences. I cannot envision a situation where they don't exist.

Again, that's a very Taoist outlook, similar to the idea that energy is never destroyed, it's just transmuted.

 

Granted. But that begs the question, "Which (or whose) version of God are we talking about then?" The Bible isn't really the Bible without the deity of Jesus. The Torah would be close, but even that would be an incomplete comparison.

I'll grant you that every action, every decision, has some kind of consequence -- good, bad, or neutral. But the questions come in when one starts weighing and judging those consequences -- how they compare to the act that caused them, and the motivation behind that act.

 

old AND new testament? i think the old testament is still the old testament without jesus, no? there are prophesies about a messiah, which would still be valid.

 

i don't think it consquences/rewards need to be absolute for a book of good ideas to make sense. think of the bible w/o divinity like a poker strategy book. it can't tell you what will happen, but it can tell you the right choices to maximize your rewards. but who knows, maybe you'll just get crappy cards and end up broke, and some idiot without a clue will get delt nothing but the nuts and end up rich. but overall, the strategies are still sound.

 

There were doubters in Jesus' day, and every day since. Some believed He was God before He was even born into this world. Some will never believe.

'Sitting at the right hand of the Father' is a figurative expression, not a literal description. For those who aren't aware, it refers to being in the place of highest honor and praise. In His current state of resurrected glory, the answer to your question is, "both".

Without doing a search, Genesis 1:26 is the first indication of plurality associated with the identity of God ("...let US make man in OUR own image..."). There are differing references within both the Mosaic books as well as the books of the prophets in the OT, but the first clear picture I'm aware of that's cited in the Bible occurs in Matthew 3:16-17 which describes the baptism of Jesus.


[font=Trebuchet MS, Arial, Geneva]"After being baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove {and} lighting on Him, and behold, a voice out of the heavens said, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased."
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OK, good, you narrowed our discussion down to a couple of examples. Let me see if I can explain myself - What was the original Hebrew text of Genesis 1:26? My question refers to the evolution of that text to the modern day, english interpretation.

The same exercise could be repeated for Matthew 3:16, but I wanna focus on another important nuance. "Son" is not the same as "Jesus=God". In case I'm not being clear enough, this is the crux of my curiosity (and in response to your "both" answer). "Son" is an entirely different entity. I know I have been exposed to well accepted Christian belief that they are one and the same and that is the crux of my patriarchial curiosity.