So, for instance, he shows us differences between sacrificial laws in Exodus and Deuteronomy and calls them contradictions, without acknowledging that the former are given for life in the wilderness, and the latter for life in the Promised Land.
.. Even more problematic, Enns describes stories where God kills people, like the Flood, as “hard to defend as the Word of God in civil adult conversation.” He spends many pages stressing what a problem divine violence is. Yet he never mentions that Jesus himself not only quoted events like this—all-destroying floods, fire and sulphur from heaven, pillars of salt, the whole caboodle—but used them to explain what his own coming would be like (Luke 17:22-37). Jesus even tells stories about people being handed over to torturers (Matt. 18:34) and eternal punishment (Matt. 25:41-46).
So yes, the picture of Jesus painted in the Gospels should unsettle fundamentalists and flat literalists. But it also should also unsettle progressives, peaceniks, and professors—especially those who think that Jesus would join them in rejecting the accuracy of the Bible’s violent narratives.
.. In short, if I were trying to write a book about the Bible that allowed progressive moderns to ditch all the bits they don’t like, this is exactly how I would have done it.