Is God a Vindictive Bully?: Reconciling Portrayals of God in the Old and New Testaments

Christianity Today 2023 Award of Merit (Apologetics & Evangelism)

Critics outside the church often accuse the Old Testament God of genocide, racism, ethnic cleansing, and violence. But a rising tide of critics within the church claim that Moses and other "primitive," violence-prone prophets were mistaken about God's commands and character. Both sets of critics dismiss this allegedly harsh, flawed, "textual" Old Testament God in favor of the kind, compassionate, "actual" God revealed by Jesus...