Yeahhhh… I took a class on the history of the Bible, but that was about a decade ago, so I’m spotty on some of the details. Thanks for fleshing it out, though - I knew my take was probably missing something!

It’s because the Old Testament is actually just the Torah, rearranged and edited to fit the beliefs of what was once a sect of Judaism. That sect branched off when they decided that Jesus Christ was their Messiah, then progressively became more open and split away from the rest of Judaism and became their own religion.

That might be a bit oversimplified, but that’s really the gist of it. Jesus made a new covenant with god, which was meant to replace the old one, chronicled in the New Testament; but the old covenant was kept in as background, becoming the Old Testament.

Idk about that…

When you practice something, you’re actively changing your technique to elicit better results. You’re not making huge changes, but rather a series of miniscule ones that add up.

For instance, I could sit down with a flute and a piece of music, and play it decently. It wouldn’t be great, but it wouldn’t be terrible. If I play it the same way every time, it’s always going to sound decent - but it’s always going to have the same wrong notes, the same rushed passages, the same intonation issues… If I practice it, I can make changes over time that fix those things. I can fix my fingerings, even out the rushed bits, adjust my intonation… But then I wouldn’t be doing the same thing anymore, I’d be doing something slightly different.

Some (but not very much) of the bullshit they ramble on about is in there, but it’s not in the important part.

All of the fire and brimstone, Sodom & Gomorrah, “I am a vengeful god” shit is in the Old Testament. Sure, the Old Testament is important (it’s like half of the book, after all), but it’s important as backstory. It’s literally just the Torah in a different order, included because Christianity started as a breakaway sect of Judaism.

The part that actually pertains directly to Christianity starts with a list of “begats,” some very confused shepherds, and a barn baby getting presents. The New Testament is mostly about helping others and being tolerant; and the star of the show, Jesus, literally goes around telling people that they can get into heaven just by being nice and helping the needy. He gets angry exactly once, and goes on a table-flipping rampage because someone else was taking advantage of poor pilgrims. It’s the kind of thing that a lot of the Christian Right would call “hippie bullshit,” but it’s also the entire point of their religion.