Here is a puz­zle you may want to think about.

In Judaism in effect betrothal was already a mar­riage, but with­out mov­ing in together. If such cou­ples wanted to break up, they had to go through the process of divorce.

Jews take bear­ing chil­dren very seri­ously because they believe it is their duty to ful­fill the com­mand “go forth and mul­ti­ply”, indeed, hav­ing less than two chil­dren is con­sid­ered sin for a Jew­ish fam­ily. Thus, the very hope of every Jew­ish women is hav­ing chil­dren, a num­ber of them.

Now, know­ing this we stand per­plexed at Mary’s ques­tion. Read the following:

Lk. 1:26 “In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, 27 to a vir­gin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary.”

The angel Gabriel comes and tells her that she was going to have a child who will be a great leader. Mary’s ques­tion is the following:

Lk. 1:34 “Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, see­ing I am a vir­gin?””

She is ask­ing this while hav­ing a hus­band! Notice, the angel didn’t tell her when she would fall preg­nant. If she was betroathed to Joseph while still a child, she could have said, she was too young to fall preg­nant. But no, she points to her vir­gin­ity. Every Jew­ish women knew that they could fall preg­nant from their hus­bands, thus, Mary’s ques­tion is extremely strange. It is even stranger that she was just told that her son would be the king Mes­siah, but it doesn’t sur­prise her at all. Shall we sup­pose that such rev­e­la­tions hap­pened every day to betrothed Jew­ish women, so that there was noth­ing shock­ing in such rev­e­la­tion any­more? Why is it that her majour con­cern is her vir­gin­ity rather than the promise about her son, the long-awaited seed of David?

Con­sider what the ear­li­est gospel, Mark, that served as a tem­plate for both Matthew and Luke, has to say:

Mark 1:1 “The begin­ning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”

Surely, to Mark the good news about Jesus started with his bap­tism, not with his birth. It is also strik­ing that out­side Matthew and Luke the NT is totally silent about it. Con­sider 1John has to say about the subject:

1John 5:6 “This is he who came by water [i.e. bap­tism] and blood [i.e. his death], Jesus Christ, not with the water only but with the water and the blood.”

There­fore, John agrees with Mark about the two most sig­nif­i­cant events that marked the life of Jesus on earth.