The Old Testament and Christianity

Some of my thoughts here in an interview on the Overthinking Christian blog. My thanks to Paul Moldovan for asking me to participate.

Here's a taste:

Many Christians have the view that the OT focuses on God’s wrath while the NT on God’s love. What, if anything, is wrong with such a picture?

Ed: Well, let’s see, what would the evidence for such a view be, i.e., that the OT is more concerned with wrath and the NT more concerned with love? It’s not too hard to imagine how people who hold this view would support it. There are a lot of pretty specific laws in the OT, 613 of them according to the traditional Jewish reckoning, and some of these laws have pretty severe punishments attached to them—such as, “Whoever curses his father or his mother must be put to death” (Exod 21:17; Lev 20:9). God seems concerned in the OT about stuff like what people eat (Lev 11; Deut 14), and whether or not they wear clothes made of multiple materials (Lev 19:19; Deut 21:11). And, of course, he commands the genocide of the Canaanites (Deut 7:2; 20:16–18) and Amalekites (1 Sam 15:3). On the other hand, the New Testament presents a Jesus who is all about love (Mark 12:28:–34) and acceptance (Mark 2:13–17; Luke 7:36–50; 14:21; 19:9–10), against the hypocritical Pharisees who like to exclude people from God’s love (Matt 23:13). In the Old Testament, God is jealous (Exod 34:14); in the New Testament, God is love (1 John 4:7).
This is a caricature. 

Read the rest here.