Old Testament God was Not Merciless

In his book The God Delusion, atheist Richard Dawkins writes a scathing rendition of God as he sees Him in the Old Testament. Dawkins says: “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”1 Such words are echoed by atheist Charles Templeton who states: “The God of the Old Testament is utterly unlike the God believed in by most practicing Christians … His justice is, by modern standards, outrageous…. He is biased, querulous, vindictive, and jealous of his prerogatives.”2

What is it in the Old Testament that elicits such strong language from Dawkins and Templeton who want nothing to do with God? What causes others like Thomas Paine to write: “Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the work of a demon, than the word of God.”3