lpetrich

I got the idea from considering WinAce's Contradictions in Star Trek page, in which he uses common apologetic techniques to argue that there are no contradictions in the Star Trek canon.
Mod note: If the above link doesn't work try the following: Contradictions in Star Trek -- SoT

I have concluded that some common apologetic arguments may be called retroactive continuity, or retcon, for short. Some kinds of retcons:

* Addition of background details that clarify later events.

* Alteration of history, like someone's death being later revealed to have been only a seeming death. Such "comic book deaths" have been very common, and that has happened to more mainstream characters like Sherlock Holmes and Mr. Spock. Or else part of a series may be revealed to be imaginary in the context of that series, like a whole season of Dallas being revealed to be a dream that Pam Ewing had had.

* Subtraction of earlier events, by ignoring them or writing them out.

Some theological examples:

The second creation story of Genesis is commonly retconned into continuity with the first one by supposing it to be what happened when humanity was created. The creation of animals in it is then explained as bringing those animals to Adam.

I've seen Jesus Christ's discordant Matthew and Luke genealogies retconned in at least two ways:

* Only Matthew's was for his father; Luke's was for his mother.

* Matthew and Luke described the same genealogical line, but each one mentioned only some of those in that line.

And as for Jesus Christ's Temple temper tantrum, I recall seeing it retconned into two tantrums: the one in John, near the beginning of his career, and the one in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, near the end of his career.

Jobar

I'd say that a large proportion of all four of the gospels are retcons (did you coin that, l., or is it something from Hollywood?) intended to shoehorn Jesus into the mold of the Messiah. The earliest Christian writings known are Paul's letters, and the Christ in them seems only vaguely like the version(s) in the gospels.

Might this thread be better in BC&H, do you think?

added- oops! I see where you linked to wiki, now.

Jobar cleans glasses

Mediancat

I posted something like this a while back called, I think, "Buffy and inerrancy," using an example from Buffy: In one episode Xander complains that there's no miniature golf in Sunnydale. A few episodes later, everyone goes miniature golfing.

They don't bother to come up with the two easy explanations: They didn't go golfing in Sunnydale, or someone opened one in the intervening weeks.

I agree: I think many people see the Bible the same way.

Rob aka Mediancat

lpetrich

More theological retcons.

An interesting one is a rebuttal to Jesus-myth arguments about Paul's silence about Jesus Christ's earthly career. In his sizable volume of theological writings, he made a few statements that suggest awareness of such a career, but that's all.

The retcon here is that Paul decided to assume that his audience knew all about JC's earthly career, and thus decided not to discuss that.


Islam has some interesting ones of its own.

The Koran, like the Gnostic sect the Docetics, tells us that Jesus Christ had not been crucified, but had been taken up up into Heaven, with a fake getting crucified in his place:

And because of their saying: We slew the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, Allah's messenger - they slew him not nor crucified him, but it appeared so unto them; and lo! those who disagree concerning it are in doubt thereof; they have no knowledge thereof save pursuit of a conjecture; they slew him not for certain.

But Allah took him up unto Himself. Allah was ever Mighty, Wise.

4:157-8 (from the Skeptics' Annotated Quran)

And a Muslim belief is that the prophet Mohammed had had many predecessors who had essentially been proto-Muslims: Abraham, Moses, Jesus Christ, Alexander the Great, etc. They explain away the discrepancies between Islamic teachings and what survives of their teachings by claiming that those surviving works had gotten corrupted along the way. However, they maintain that the Koran had escaped such corruption, and has been preserved perfectly since it was revealed to Mohammed.