God of War

I struggle with the God of the Old Testament and the God that is supposedly embodied in Jesus.  The God of the Old Testament was constantly urging his people on to war and violence, whereas Jesus constantly spoke of non-violent revolution and love.  

So it seems to me that this leaves us with two options:

1)Jesus wasn't really the embodiment of God and got it wrong.

2)The people of the Old Testament were an ancient people who saw the hand of the gods as being enmeshed in every act and every aspect of life.  Thus, anything they did or saw done to them was a direct act of God.  So when they wanted to go to war, the simple explanation was that God directed them to do it (at least America never does this right?).  Jesus came to dispel this notion of God as archaic and called humans to a higher plane of living.  One in which love and peace are the cornerstones of life.  

I'm inclined to go with option two simply because of my fairly limited studies of ancient cultures.  It makes sense to me, but it drives fundamentalists crazy because you have to start picking the Scriptures apart in order get at the truth.  It also implies that God didn't write the Bible with his own finger (he didn't by the way), but that it was written by flawed humans who's personalities played a part in what was written.  I'll probably write more about that at some point.  

The point being is that I believe that Jesus got it right, and that the Old Testament's idea of God grew out of an archaic understanding of the gods as wrathful beings who inflict dire punishment on the wicked and benefits the righteous.