Questioner wrote:
Here's the rub with that one Frank. If you look at the bible you'll actually discover that there are two personalities of god. The OT god, which was fire, brimstone, the god of genocide and the god to be feared. Then you have the NT version of the lovable, huggable, giving, "forgive all who belive" god. This dichotomy of the character of god is perhaps the most confusing for me.
All that is to say, this is yet another example of how the bible gives them an "out". You say 'God did all of these terrible things!' they say "That was the old god, under the old covenant. The new god is cherry blossoms and snow cones and blah blah . . . .". You get the idea.
Absolutely.
That is why when I debate or discuss the Bible with these fine folk, Questioner...I always make it abundantly clear that when I discuss the god of the Bible...
...I refer to the god that Jesus worshipped.
I neglected to do that here...(although most of these people have heard it in other threads)...and I thank you for giving me the opportunity to clear that up.
As far as I am concerned...and apparently as far as Jesus was concerned...
...the god of the Bible is the god Jesus worshipped...
...and we can read what that god says and does in the first five books of the Bible.
Oh, one other thing...Jesus went out of his way to assure everyone that he was not here to change any of the "Law"...the material contained in Leviticus...and expanded on in Deuteronomy. Not one word...not one letter...not one stroke of a letter...was he here to change.