Mary's 10 Year Pregnancy!

[Tonus]

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

"They" seem to have reacted pretty casually to the realization that a virgin woman was with 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.

I am speaking of the account recorded in the book of Matthew. The account itself is written awkwardly and inconsistently, as I have explained. Telling me that I can't know for sure because the documents that may give more detail don't exist (and may never have) is neither relevant nor sensible.

Because he knew he did not father that child.

My point being that either Mary withheld the information from him, or she told him and he did not believe her. The wording of the passage makes it seem as if she did not tell him. If that is the case, he can only have assumed fornication on her part.

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

I'm pointing out that the part about her being "found to be pregnant" is problematic. If her pregnancy was obvious, there is one set of issues. If it was not, then there is another set of issues. I have discussed those in my previous posts.

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.

The gospels contain plenty of stories of how people reacted to miraculous occurrences. We can assume that if a young woman was pregnant yet had not had sexual relations, there would at the least be quite an uproar. Or maybe they were just that mellow?

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.

That's a good point. But it implies that Joseph took action not to protect Mary, but to protect... god? Again, the secrecy just strikes me as weird.

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.

But if this is the case, we're back to my original questions. Why check a pregnant woman for virginity? And it also makes me wonder why god would not want to let everyone know. Wouldn't that have cleared everything up? Why do things in such a hush-hush manner?