Is God petty and childish in the Bible?
Absolutely, if we are being honest.
There are dozens of cases where God responds just like a spoiled child, angry when he doesn't get his way, valuing things we now consider valueless as adults, jealous, judgmental and unforgiving,
punishing children for what their parents supposedly did,
punishing entire cities for the sins of the few, giving special priveleges only to the few and with no apparent reason for it, and a degree of fickleness where “crimes” of one day are not so bad the next, taking sides against those who fought the Jewish tribes (as written by Jewish tribesmen), being against eating pork, being against eating dairy and meat together, wanting his followers to circumsise, against the wearing of wool and cotton at the same time, against people expressing their sexual identity, supposedly against any sort of maintenance functions on a given day of the week, insisting on out of proportion punishment (stoning to death) for cheating on a husband (not so serious for the husband cheating on the wife), tolerance for slavery, women having few rights, and supposedly rquesting/expecting infanticide of first born upon request, encouraging the judgment and condemnation of your neighbor, and much more.
It is clearly obvious that these were all the ideas of petty human beings, flawed men who were projecting themselves and their tribes' values onto their God. They lacked the imagination to invent a God of true love and acceptance. To them, (and unfortunately, still, for a near majority, today), they thought of this as normal “behavior” for a God. Truly sad!
AS a devout Catholic growing up I wondered about this all the time—why an almighty, omnipresent, omniscient being would give a damn about human genitals for example and what we did with them, why mammals and great apes were such a chief concern with him, or earth as this unremarkable planet in a small galaxy off to the side of the universe. He’s got nothing better to do than to order these people around as they struggle to survive and do anything competently? He wants to be worshipped by them? Demands it? Pathetic. It caused me eventually to wise up on the silly writings of ancient scripture.