[aimhigh]

As such, these passages are perfectly useful today.

The passages aren't useful unless God, today, gives a similar command. In Islam, the old passages still apply as a general instruction to kill the infidels.

[derheimwill]

Perhaps I wasn't clear: I didn't mean that we read those passages to find permission for killing, we read them to examine the nature of God (to learn to fear Him). The "sins" which prompt Islam to go on a killing spree are not nearly severe as the ones I mentioned in #14. The Peoples God had killed in the OT were totally lost in occult madness.

[derheimwill]

In Islam, the the old passages don't apply as a general instruction to kill, the old passages are a general instruction to kill. No such thing in OT.