As a parent, I know that there are times when I am the "smiting, punishing" mother and the "loving forgiving" mother. They are two sides to my personality, and to my position as parent. However, if you read the Old Testament in its entirety, you will see that both sides of God's character are shown consistently, as they are in the New Testament. The problem is that modern humans do not like the thought of being held accountable for their actions, so they prefer a Santa Claus sort of God who gives out presents to everyone, regardless of whether they have been naughty or nice, and regardless of whether he has said he will not give anything to those who are naughty. Now THAT is an inconsisistent God.

Please carefully read Deuteronomy 30 and Isaiah 48:17-19. If you think on it with an open mind and a receptive heart, you will gain much understanding into why God acts as he does and where much of the trouble in the world comes from. Along with the rest of the Scriptures, we get a balanced view of our Creator who is highly consistent. Pick out a few verses here and there and you will get a confusing, distorted picture of God. When you get to know him by his name, Jehovah or Yahua, and learn his personality, he becomes a very inviting character.

In simple terms I look at it as the old testament setting the table for the new testament to take place. I don't think of them as being completely separate.

Hypocrit!

In the old testament there where a lot of people that needed to be smited, not so in new testament, people changed, God didn't need to smite no mo'.

At the very heart of this question lies a fundamental misunderstanding of what both the Old and New Testaments reveal about the nature of God. Another way of expressing this same basic thought is when people say, “The God of the Old Testament is a God of wrath while the God of the New Testament is a God of love.” The fact that the Bible is God’s progressive revelation of Himself to us through historical events and through His relationship with people throughout history might contribute to people’s misconceptions about what God is like in the Old Testament as compared to the New Testament. However, when one reads both the Old and the New Testaments it becomes evident that God is not different from one Testament to another and that God’s wrath and His love are revealed in both Testaments. For example, throughout the Old Testament, God is declared to be “merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abundant in loving-kindness and truth” (Exodus 34:6; Numbers 14:18; Deuteronomy 4:31; Nehemiah 9:17; Psalm 86:5; Psalm 86:15; Psalm 108:4; Psalm 145:8; Joel 2:13). Yet in the New Testament, God’s loving-kindness and mercy are manifested even more fully through the fact that “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Throughout the Old Testament, we also see God dealing with Israel much the same way a loving father deals with a child. When they willfully sinned against Him and began to worship idols, God would chastise them, yet each and every time He would deliver them once they had repented of their idolatry. This is much the same way that we see God dealing with Christians in the New Testament. For example, Hebrews 12:6 tells us that “the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son.” In a similar way, throughout the Old Testament we see God’s judgment and wrath poured out on unrepentant sinners. Likewise, in the New Testament, we see that the wrath of God is still “being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness” (Romans 1:18). Even with just a quick reading of the New Testament, it is evident that Jesus talks more about hell than He does about heaven. So, clearly, God is no different in the Old Testament than He is in the New Testament. God by His very nature is immutable (unchanging). While we might see one aspect of His nature revealed in certain passages of Scripture more than other aspects, He Himself does not change. When one really begins to read and study the Bible, it becomes clear that God is the same in the Old Testament and the New Testament. Recommended Resource http://www.gotquestions.org