I thank my friend Larry Nelson for giving me this good book by Steve Wells. With strong supporting evidence, it estimates that the Bible records 25 million killings with the overwhelming majority of them reported with explicit or implicit approval.
Yet, Wells says that "There are only four killings in the last 25 books of the Protestant Old Testament." (Page 235) He lists 2 for the New Testament and they both refer to the death of Jesus (Romans 8:32 &1 Peter 1:19).
Clearly, then. the Bible is not a photograph. It is a movie with a plot that moves from violence toward nonviolence. from exclusivism toward inclusivism, from inequality toward equality, from sorrow toward joy, from meaninglessness toward meaning. Doing what to nudge things a little further in these directions is an important part of what it means to be a Christian today.
The second book by Frederic Zurcher, another friend of mine, discusses these issues and much more. It is excellent! Beginning with the problem of evil, which sets to stage for everything else, it ends nine chapters later with the doctrine of the Trinity. Although it wasn't written to be one, I think of it as a one volume systematic theodicy. With much erudition, he traces and assesses many illogical and unbiblical beliefs about God which portray him as a bloodthirsty monster.