Is ignoring the Old Testament law cherry-picking?

When people like Sam Harris say that forgetting about the "vile" parts of the Old Testament law is cherry-picking, isn't that a deliberate distortion of Christian theology?

This is a fairly common defense, that the bad parts of the Old Testament law can be "legitimately" thrown out because the New Testament establishes a new covenant. This is undeniably a crucial aspect of Pauline theology, so if you start with the presupposition that the Bible does not ever contradict itself (even if it appears to), then yes, you can say that the New Testament (taken as a whole) does establish that.

But even so, there are parts of the gospels where Jesus emphasizes the importance of keeping the old law. Take the story of the rich young ruler in Luke 18, for example. Anyone who's been to Sunday School will know all about how this guy asked Jesus "what must I do to be saved," and Jesus answered, "sell everything you have and give it to the poor." But what most people seem to overlook is that before Jesus says this, his first response to the question about how to inherit eternal life is simply to keep the commandments. He didn't say (or even hint), "just wait until I rise from the dead and believe in me, and you'll be set." He said to keep the Old Testament laws. Remember, that was in response to a question, not just about how to be a good person, but how to inherit eternal life.

Another example is in Matthew 5, when Jesus said he did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. Sure, that sounds more or less like the New Covenant doctrine. But then, immediately after that he says that not one stroke of the old law will disappear until heaven and earth pass away. I've had discussions about this before (quite recently, in fact), and the question for me with this passage always comes down to this; why does the phrase "until heaven and earth pass away" even appear in this verse at all, if his resurrection is the point when he will fulfill the old law and usher in the new covenant?

Matthew 23:2-3 could certainly be seen as an instruction to continue keeping the old laws, but that's a bit more subtle.

I would agree that Paul teaches that the old laws don't need to be kept. But who is the higher authority for you, Paul or Jesus? Heck, Paul even said himself in Romans 7:12, that the Law is holy. See, that's another big problem with this defense against those ugly parts of the Old Testament. New Covenant theology says those laws are not necessary for salvation, but it never says that those laws are evil or wrong. It never disavows them. So to act like this doctrine makes it okay to just completely forget them now is exactly the cherry-picking that Sam Harris said it was.