Quik Thinking

I've been reading Joshua recently and by chapter 23 I get the impression that God was experimenting with the Israelites by giving them all these strange instructions to see what they would follow. We now know that eventually all those convoluted old laws were simplified into a single pair. Normally such an approach would qualify as an experiment painting God as a scientist experimenting with His creation. However, not being bound to time as we are, God would have already known the outcome of His interactions with the Israelites. Therefore, the iterative approach He used with them would have been for their benefit. Suddenly it begins to seem more like a gardener shaping a hedge. That actually makes more sense given all the metaphors used to describe God's relationship with people: potter and clay, shepherd and sheep, etc. So all those strange instructions were just part of the artistic process as God shaped the Israelites into what they needed to be before He could eventually use them as the launchpad for bringing the opportunity for salvation to all of humanity. This is a new way of looking at the old testament for me but I think it's an improvement over the old one that left me perplexed at times.