You're nitpicking and avoiding the central issue of whether or not "God created man in His image" really means anything. :) IF personality is NOT included in that idea, then it means nothing.
I don't think the OT God had "conversations" with the prophets and patriarchs. It was more like ordering them to do this or that.
What??? How about God's "negotiation" with Abraham about Sodom? How about God dealing with Moses' protestations about not being fit? How about God's discussion with David about his punishment? There are tons of examples. What God wanted WAS set, but He DID spend the time to discuss it.
Jews did not come to God because they loved him, but because they feared him!
How can you possibly know that? I don't think you get what "fear of the Lord" means. Fear of the Lord and love for the Lord are very related.
God had to prove to them that he is the Lord by showing them what he can do to those who don't obey him.
God did not HAVE to prove anything to anyone. He ordained all that happened.
Our knowledge of Christ is nothing like the knowledge of the God of the OT!
That's true, but it's not a competition. The revelation of God is complementary, not in conflict. The full revelation gives us the full picture we were meant to have. The OT God and the NT God are FULLY compatible. They are the SAME God.
Of course it does. God created man sovereign on earth. You don't think God has an image (face), save for the humanity of Christ.
IF personality is NOT included in that idea, then it means nothing
No, it has nothing do with the personality; it has to do with the dominion.
But He also created man in His likeness, that is capable of mercy, wisdom, moral prudence, so that we can govern this dominion justly and prudently and morally upright, imitating God in His dominion.
The Bible differentiates the image and the likeness. This is obvious in Hebrew as well as in Greek; the "image" being more symbolic represntation [Greek: eikona, an icon], and "likeness"[Gr. homoiosis, similitidue, from the root homoi, similarly].
God wanted to kill Moses at one point. Was this preodained too? Does God preodain getting frustrated too? You are reading narratives as if they are documentaries.
What was the purpose of these "negotiations?" Since they changed nothing that God already did predesitne, as uou observe, they were empty rituals. They were not "negotations" but reading of the rights.
How so? In Orthodoxy, the fear of the Lord is the awe when we approach Him at the chalice.
The love comes from His goodness and mercy for us undeserving sinners.
The Old Testament God (with some exceptions, such as in genesis) does not exhibit the characteristics of Christ but of Zeus.
Kosta: God had to prove to them that he is the Lord by showing them what he can do to those who don't obey him.
FK: God did not HAVE to prove anything to anyone. He ordained all that happened.
Well, apparently, the OT God did not just zap Hebrews' hearts and make them believe! He found it necessary to do all sorts of tricks (i.e. changing the staff into a snake and back!) to convince the unbelieving Hebrews that He is Lord indeed.
Fully compatible, no. Same God, yes. The difference stems from what the writers of the Old Testament experienced as God and Christ's Incarnation showing a strikingly different God. One more example that "inner voices" do not provide full revelation.