with their unusual names, it’s easy to skip right over the three words in italics. But there they sit, a testimony to the subtlety and proofreading talent of the intrusive narrator. He well remembers that two chapters earlier he had told his readers that Jesus’s mother, Mary, conceived him without having sexual relations with a man, and so to avoid any inconsistency he now informs them that those who weren’t in the know naturally assumed that Joseph was his biological father. The insertion clears