Is God Schizo?

Does anyone out there see a contradiction between the God of the Old testament and the God of the New Testament? One was violent and egotistical, the other kind and forgiving. Obviously the product of two different minds and two different cultures.

Not so.
Jews wrote the Bible, Old and New. Same culture. The difference was, in ancient times, the driving influence, or 'wind', was war. Everything revolved around war. Today, it revolves around money, but back then it revolved around war. Conquest, killing, ruling by might. God used this prevailing wind in His own ways, using it as a way to communicate to the nations. He seems to honor man's culture, even if it's wicked. War was the language that they understood. If an enemy won a battle, it was because their god helped them. If the Jews won a battle, the nations would see that their God was the true God, and the pagan gods were weak or nonexistent.

I touched on the supposed bloodthirstiness of God in an older post. Look to your right and you'll see the link. God, being Creator and Owner of every atom in the universe, can destroy anything or anyone whenever He wants. He doesn't, but He can. What appears to be God being violent or petty is actually God being exasperated with sin. He is holy, and all sin is abhorrent to Him. Imagine walking in on a sexually perverse scene going on in your home. You would be repulsed. Why? Because it offends your very soul. And in your house, you can mete out justice the way you see fit, because a crime is going on in your home. Now imagine you are God. The beings you made are offending your holy nature by defying You in Your own home, the earth. They do repugnant things with their minds and bodies. Do you let bygones be bygones, or mete out justice? Remember, it's your house and you can do what you want. You are The Judge, The Lawgiver, The Executioner. The buck stops with you.
Do you let them go, or punish them?

Being God, you can blow up cities, command a group of people to kill another group of people, flood the world, and use unholy nations to discipline your own people because you own everything. You define what is 'good' and what is 'evil'.

God is still the same God. But in 4 B.C. or so He sent his Son to us to give us a new message: God forgives. It was a new dispensation, a new administration of God's mercy. The wind of war had run its course. people were getting used to the idea of peace, order, and democracy.
It was time for Jesus.

He did not nullify God the Father's personality, He pacified His wrath. But the Father was also pictured as being kind and merciful in the Old Testament. Remember Nineveh? He relented from destroying it because the people repented. Now, He relents from judging the world to give people time to repent and believe on Christ. The discrepancy of  'Old vs. New' was not in the writers minds, but in modern readers'. We don't understand the depths of our sin, so we think God should be a kind old grandfatherly push-over. That is wishful thinking. Our sin offends God. Even the little ones!

So no matter how angry or vengeful God appeared to be in the Old Testament, none of it was wrong or unwarranted. He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. What changed was how he dealt with people. Instead of the sword, he gives a healing hand. Instead of raining fire, he gives missionaries. The mistake we make is not reading scripture correctly and not understanding who God is.
The two go hand in hand.