Some "progressive" Christians try to defang OT passages about "divine violence" by claiming there's a trajectory in Scripture, where the final revelation of God in Christ abrogates the OT view. But there's a glaring problem with that strategy. Indeed, several glaring problems, but for now I'll focus on one in particular.
As a rule, "progressive" Christians who pursue this strategy don't think God changed his view of man; rather, they think man changed his view of God. They think OT writers had a xenophobic outlook. They viewed Yahweh as a tribal God of war. By contrast, NT writers have a cosmopolitan outlook. They view the Father as a God of peace.
But other issues to one side, we're not talking about what God is really like, but what fallible Bible writers happen to think he's like. It's not God revealing his true character to man, but a culturally-conditioned record of what Jews and Christians believed about God.
So it comes down to a choice between fallible OT writers and fallible NT writers. It's not as if OT writers were uninspired while NT writers are suddenly inspired. In both cases, it's just a human projection. Supposedly, OT writers were mistaken, but what's the standard of comparison? Appealing to the NT won't solve the problem, for that's not a fact about God, but a belief about God. And if Bible writers can be as profoundly mistaken as "progressive" Christians think many OT writers were, what exempts NT writers?
Indeed, many "progressive" Christians take issue with NT writers. They think Paul was sexist and homophobic.
The same is true when they try to distinguish different strands within the OT. Conflicting opinions about God.
In theory, some theologians who believe God changes, that God acquires human understanding via the Incarnation, might say the NT represents a paradigm-shift in God's own viewpoint. He went from being a sociopath in OT times to a peacenik in NT times. Of course, that's a very unstable deity. What happens to us if he gets bored with his human pets?
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