Mary's 10 Year Pregnancy!

[Drich]

Well, they could simply have told the truth.

They did, she was a virgin, they checked, life moved on.

There is no account that the community was aware of the fact that a virgin was carrying a child.

In order to accuractly make that statement, you have to account for all of the written records of that day. Something you can not do, because the complete written record simply does not exist anymore.

There was tremoundous effort and expense to care for and preserve the manuscripts, not that this revelation would not be worth of it. What I'm saying is this expense was somewhat offset by storing the records of the Jewish people in centralized locatations call scriptoriums, which were basically libraries for the priests. These scriptoriums were burned to the ground in and around 70AD when Rome came in and destroyed the temple. I read somewhere that we only have about 5% of what these scriptoriums held.

Again to say there was no record is at best persumptious.

It all seems secretive, to the degree that even Joseph required divine intervention before he knew the truth.

Because he knew he did not father that child.

Not only does the account not mention that she was checked for virginity, the only time anyone seems to be aware of her situation is through the action of holy spirit or angelic messengers.

so your abandoning your 'baby bump' theory now in favor of this?

Based on your explanation, we are to understand that a pregnant woman was checked and found to be a virgin, but no one seemed to consider this to be notable.

This happened 2000 years ago and all we have left is the law and what is know of the culture to make any determination as to how society would have reacted.
We know premaritial sex was more than frowned upon. It was a husband's right to call for the woman's death in certain situations. The fact that she was showing at the time of her marriage put her in a lot of hot water, and possiably him as well. At the time of their marriage there would have been questions by the priest. the only way the two of them would have escaped unscathed is if there were no sexual sin committed. Which means she would have had to tell them she was a virgin. Which is a blasphemous assertion deserving of death if not true. thus compounding their situation if she was indeed not a virgin.

Hence why Joseph decided to make the marriage official.

Mat 2:20 But after Joseph thought about this, an angel from the Lord came to him in a dream. The angel said, “Joseph, son of David, don’t be afraid to accept Mary to be your wife. The baby inside her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son. You will name him Jesus.[b] Give him that name because he will save his people from their sins.”

22 All this happened to make clear the full meaning of what the Lord said through the prophet: 23 “The virgin will be pregnant and will give birth to a son. They will name him Immanuel.”[c] (Immanuel means “God with us.”)

24 When Joseph woke up, he did what the Lord’s angel told him to do. He married Mary. 25 But Joseph did not have sexual relations with her until her son was born. And he named him Jesus.

If a literal angel told me my fiance' was carring the Son of God and I was to marry her and name the boy Jesus, then I would marry her and name the boy Jesus.

This implies that her situation was not known to anyone that god had not specifically notified via angels or dreams.

Ah, no. all anyone could discern by looking at her is that she was prego. The divine revelations given to people by the angels was to inform that Mary did nothing wrong.

Joseph would not have been concerned about bringing Mary public shame if it was understood that she was carrying the fetus of god himself.

Read the story again. Joseph's concern happened before he was told the orgins of Mary's child.

He knew that taking her into his home would lead people to believe that the child was his. Why there was this need for deception and secrecy, the text does not say, and I find it somewhat awkward.

He took her into his home because he pledged himself to do so before any of this happened. He did so because he knew neither he nor she did anything wrong. They were selected to bring the Son of God into this world and care for Him for a time.