The idea that the God of the OT and that of the NT are markedly different in character is not new. Which you personally think is "cooler" is, of course, conditioned by your own preferences. This assumes, as I think is safe given the title of this node, you define the word "cool"in the sense of "excellent" and not as "lacking heat." A discussion involving the latter definition would prove quite interesting indeed. In any event, I present two viewpoints for the noder interested in making up his/her own mind on the topic.
- The Gnostics believed (believe) that the god of the OT is, in fact (and in short), an insane yet powerful spirit named Yaldabaoth, who has selfishly called creation into being for the purpose of amusing himself. Christ, the sort of second in command of the actual God (a kind of Neoplatonic ideal deity who does not get his hands dirty) was sent to infiltrate creation for the purpose of informing people (in reality, trapped souls, ripped maliciously from the pleroma) of their true, divine origin. Armed with this knowledge, the Gnostic faithful will depart from existence upon their deaths, instead of being recycled into new bodies. Given this schema, we must assume that the NT god is cooler, as he is infinite in all things, while Yaldabaoth must, by definition, be less cool.
- Friedrich Nietzsche takes the opposite view, as he explains in Beyond Good and Evil, section 52. To his mind, the OT is the superior work because it represents a powerful expression of divine justice, while the NT is full of things for the "small-souled" man--the concept of grace, for example. He says, for example, "With terror and reverence one stands before these tremendous remnants of what man once was, and will have sad thoughts about ancient Asia and its protruding little peninsula Europe, which wants by all means to signify as against Asia the "progress of man." To the Nietzschean, postmodern mind, then, the NT god offers a contemptible, sickly sweet avenue of man's redemption; while the OT god metes reward to the deserving and punishment for the lacking. The OT god is thus the cooler of the two.