regions and cities that will later be the scenes of Jesus’ activity. Joseph, as the pater familias, takes the initiative. His Davidic lineage is noted redundantly.30 Mary is mentioned discreetly, and for the first time, as pregnant.31 It is shocking for the readers that a bride-to-be32 is traveling with her fiancé and is, beyond this, pregnant. This is difficult to justify even by recourse to the nature of engagement, which legally constitutes marriage. A novelist could, in any case, postulate