Jesus repeatedly referred to the Old Testament. Parts of the Old Testament are horrific. But "Christians" who want to selectively pull things out of the Koran are often the same ones who are apologists for the Old Testament, selectively explaining away the brutality for their own convenience. Are you one of them?
IMHO the Old Testament is a book of spiritual growth for the Hebrew people. It shows terrible things that were done by people, without the Lord's guidence. It demonstrates the power the Lord could use by having the ex-slaves (weaklings) conquer those that displeased Him. It "demonstrates" the wrath of the Lord (what some that selectively use verses to support, only, their belief, refer to as genocide, even though these people are mentioned in the OT afterwards), when "His people" turn away from Him.
There are "rules" for certain times, that some people say are forever. There were laws made that were made irrelevent in the NT (non-jews eating "unclean" animals). The Ten Commandments still stand. Personally, I no longer consider the "sabbath" to be especially special (when the Hebrews came out of Egypts as newly freed slaves, the Lord provided for them on the "sabbath", therefore it was an extremely special day); since Yeshua came, I consider EVERY day to be His day.
In the OT, there was "little" chance for forgiveness by the Lord. A sin committed by a father was passed to his children, and to all his descendents. It was "important" to stop a sinner (they were killed or ran to a "sancuary city"), for his descendents to be blessed by the Lord. Much of Levitcus was to prevent families from being cursed.
In the NT, there is a "new covenant" with the Lord. Now you can be forgiven your sins. Now the Lord is written onto each man's heart (he knows right from wrong, and he knows there is a Lord). The NT does not encourage a sinful path. It encourages people that are lost that there is a "good chance" they can find the right path, and with the Lord's help, they can follow it to eternal life.
Many think that is not a big deal. When the "fallen angels" learned that as punishment for their destructive acts against the Lord, that they would NEVER be allowed in His presence again, they fell to the ground an gnashed their teeth, ripped their clothes and cried (book of Enoch). These were "beings" that had been in the presence of the Lord, and could not comprehend the pain of never being near Him again. In Revelations, it says that every knee will bow before Him. I would rather join Him as a broken sinner, than to be rejected to an eternity of never seeing Him again after that encounter. I listen to a lot of people make light of that day. I have been around long enough to know that people rarely act the way they brag.
One of the biggest differences to me between islam and Christianity: Christianity wants every person to spend eternity with the Lord, islam wants to condemn/kill every person that does not believe as them. Christianity is HOPE. Islam is death.
