The Old Testament was written for a specific people in a specific moment of history. It was not written for you, and it was not written with Jesus’ teachings in mind — because Jesus had not yet arrived. Much of it reflects the concerns, conflicts, and customs of ancient Israel in ways that have no meaningful application to modern life and, more critically, no alignment with what Jesus actually taught. Treating it as an equal or absolute authority alongside the Gospels is not theological rigor. It is a category error.
For those gripped by the fear that setting aside contradictory scripture will earn them a place in the lake of fire — it won’t. That fear is itself a product of the same institutional conditioning that has kept Christians confused and compliant for centuries. It is worth examining rather than obeying.
What the conflation of the Old Testament with the teachings of Jesus has produced is a Christianity in permanent crisis of interpretation. Without a coherent standard for what actually matters, believers are left constructing highly personalized versions of the faith — accepting the verses that suit them, quietly ignoring the ones that don’t, and calling the result conviction. That is not a foundation. It is improvisation dressed in the language of the sacred.
The remedy is simplicity. The only teachings that are indispensable are the ones Jesus himself gave. Everything else — the additions, the expansions, the archaic mandates, the books advocating conquest and sanctioned killing — can be safely set aside without spiritual consequence. The Gospels are not enhanced by being placed alongside instructions for ethnic cleansing. They are obscured by it.
It is worth remembering that the Bible as a unified volume was not handed down from the heavens. It was assembled by a committee of human beings who decided which writings would share the same binding. That decision conferred equal visual weight to profoundly unequal content. The Gospels and Deuteronomy are not the same kind of document. Treating them as though they carry identical authority is precisely what produces the generations of confused Christians who cannot reconcile what they read on one page with what they read on the next.
Become a minimalist. Follow the core. If a teaching — in the Old Testament or the New — contradicts what Jesus taught, it does not need to be defended, rationalized, or cherry-picked around. It can simply be left behind. His message was never the problem. What was piled on top of it was.
If you’re going to be a follower of Jesus, be a minimalist, and stick to only to what he taught. I’ve delved into this topic in the past, specifying as examples, teachings in both the New and Old Testament that contradict what Jesus taught. These contradictions after the death of Jesus started almost right away as you’ll see in my article dedicated to the writings of Paul, someone who never even met Jesus yet whose writings are treated with equal respect as the teachings of Jesus. Below you’ll find links to these articles for those interested:
The Pre & Post Contaminations of Jesus
How Paul Derailed Christianity
To give a perfect example for the purpose of this article, the biblical contradictions that have led to incredibly inconsistent incarnations of Christianity in the modern day is
Leviticus 19:34 Do not mistreat foreigners living in your country, but treat them just as you treat your own citizens. Love foreigners as you love yourselves. (A message that is consistent with the teachings of Jesus of caring towards others)
Deuteronomy 28 “Foreigners who live in your land will gain more and more power, while you gradually lose yours. They will have money to lend you, but you will have none to lend them. In the end they will be your rulers.”
The same Old Testament can be cited to justify the expulsion of every foreigner — and cited with equal validity to demand their welcome and protection. Both positions exist within the same book. Both have their verses. Neither can accuse the other of misreading the text, because the contradictions are genuinely there.
This is not a peripheral inconsistency. It is a structural one, and it explains why Christianity has never produced a single, coherent moral consensus on even the most basic questions of human treatment. When the source material argues with itself, so will every tradition built upon it.
The passages most frequently weaponized in these debates — Deuteronomy being a reliable example — were not transcendent spiritual truths delivered for all of humanity across all of time. They were political directives written for the governance of ancient Israel, addressing circumstances that ceased to exist thousands of years ago. They belong to the historical record of a specific nation in a specific era. That they now get cited to shape modern immigration policy, legislation, and social attitudes is a consequence of their having been bound between the same covers as the Gospels — proximity mistaken for equivalence.
A book this thoroughly at odds with itself cannot function as a reliable moral compass. It never could. The only reliable thread running through the confusion is the one Jesus himself provided. Follow that. Use it as the filter. When any passage — from Leviticus, Deuteronomy, or anywhere else — contradicts what he taught, it does not need to be defended or reinterpreted. It simply does not apply.
His teachings are the signal. The rest is noise. Purge them.
Below you’ll find numerous examples of Old Testament verses that are at complete odds with the teachings of Jesus. One cannot say with any conviction or confidence that they reconcile with each other.
Violence and Warfare
- God commanding the complete extermination of entire peoples, including women and children (Deuteronomy 20:16–17) — directly contradicts Jesus’ teachings on nonviolence, mercy, and loving enemies
- Killing every living thing in conquered cities (1 Samuel 15:3) — contradicts “blessed are the merciful”
- God endorsing and commanding genocide as a political tool — contradicts Jesus’ radical inclusivity and love of all humanity
Treatment of Outsiders
- Prohibitions against intermarriage with foreigners (Deuteronomy 7:3) — contradicts Jesus’ consistent welcome of outsiders, Samaritans, and Gentiles
- Instructions to drive out and destroy foreign nations (Exodus 34:11–12) — contradicts the Good Samaritan and the universal brotherhood Jesus taught
Slavery
- Explicit rules for owning and maintaining slaves (Leviticus 25:44–46, Exodus 21:2–6) — irreconcilable with Jesus’ teachings on human dignity and equality before God
- Instructions on how severely you may beat a slave (Exodus 21:20–21) — directly contradicts every principle of compassion Jesus taught
Women
- Women required to be silent and subordinate (multiple passages across Leviticus and Numbers) — contradicts Jesus’ radical inclusion of women as disciples and equals
- A woman’s virginity as property to be verified, with death as punishment for its absence (Deuteronomy 22:13–21) — contradicts Jesus’ consistent compassion toward women society condemned
- Daughters can be sold into slavery by their fathers (Exodus 21:7) — irreconcilable with Jesus’ teachings on human dignity
Punishment and Retribution
- “An eye for an eye” as the governing principle of justice (Exodus 21:24) — directly contradicted by Jesus in Matthew 5:38–39, where he explicitly overturns it (Turn the other cheek)
- Death penalty for working on the Sabbath (Exodus 31:15) — contradicts Jesus repeatedly healing and working on the Sabbath and condemning legalistic rigidity
- Death penalty for cursing one’s parents (Leviticus 20:9) — contradicts Jesus’ teachings on forgiveness without limit
- Stoning as punishment for adultery (Leviticus 20:10) — directly contradicted by Jesus in John 8 when he intervenes to stop exactly this
Dietary and Ritual Laws
- Extensive purity codes, dietary restrictions, and ritual requirements (Leviticus 11–15) — Jesus explicitly declared all foods clean (Mark 7:19) and consistently dismissed ritual purity as a substitute for inner transformation
- Animal sacrifice as the mechanism for atonement — contradicts Jesus’ teaching that forgiveness comes from within, through sincere repentance and inner change
Wealth and Prosperity
- Obedience to God rewarded with material wealth and military dominance (Deuteronomy 28) — directly contradicts Jesus’ consistent warnings against materialism, his statement that the wealthy will struggle to enter the Kingdom, and his blessing of the poor
Tribalism and Exclusivity
- Israel as uniquely chosen and superior among nations — contradicts Jesus’ universal message that the Kingdom of God belongs to all of humanity equally
- Neighboring peoples described as enemies to be feared, conquered, or avoided — contradicts Jesus’ instruction to love enemies and the parable of the Good Samaritan specifically dismantling tribal boundaries
Fear as Motivation
- God portrayed throughout as wrathful, jealous, and prone to mass punishment of entire populations for the sins of individuals — contradicts Jesus’ consistent portrayal of God as a loving father, and his instruction to approach God without fear
When you examine the whole picture honestly, the pattern is pretty clear: a lot of the Old Testament comes from a tribal, fear-based mindset—something shaped by politics and used to run an ancient nation. What Jesus was teaching, though, was totally different. It was universal, inward, and rooted in love instead of rules. Those two approaches don’t really line up—in fact, a lot of the time, they’re straight-up at odds with each other. Again, it is both necessary and safe to purge much of the Old and New Testament that undeniably contradict what Jesus taught. These writings must not be held up with the same respect just because a committee decided it was a good idea to include them in the book, and without taking an hour to ensure whether those older writings were in conjunction with the teachings of Jesus.
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