Why was Mariam shocked to learn she would bear Jesus?

In the Gospel of Luke a virgin betrothed to Joseph was visited by the angel or messenger Gabriel. He announced that she would bear a son to be named Jesus. 

She was shocked. She said in Luke 1:35 'How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?' 

But she was 'betrothed' to Joseph! The verb 'know' must mean have sexual relations with him. 

Isn't that peculiar? Did it need an angel to tell her that marriage leads to children?

The reply of Gabriel is also unusual. It is not what we would expect.

'The holy spirit will come upon you and the power of the Highest shall overshadow you. Therefore the holy born one shall be called the son of God. And behold, your cousin Elizabeth. She also conceived a son in her old age. And this is the sixth month with her that was called barren. For with God, nothing is impossible.' 
Does this expression 'the holy spirit will come upon you' have anything to do with insemination of seed so Joseph was sidelined and rendered redundant? Hardly. A few verses later we learn in 2:25 that the holy spirit 'was upon' someone else. Who? Simeon the retired high priest! He was old and hardly pregnant! 

Was Mary 14 years old?
If as many churches say, Mary -- or Mariam as it is in the Greek NT -- was 14 years of age, why is she so surprised that one day in her marriage she will become pregnant. And what was Joseph doing marrying a 14 year old? Isn't that child abuse? Nothing in scripture supports a teenage girl. The only source of this is pagan mythologies where unmarried, unbetrothed virgins are inseminated by Jupiter or some other god. 
Why does the angel mention an old, grey or white haired cousin called Elizabeth? The word for old age here is the Greek, gera, from which we derive our term geriatrics. Cousins are usually in the same age bracket. This is confirmed in the Greek text. Note the word 'also'.

The Greek says:
And behold, (idou -- Just take a look at that!) your cousin Elizabeth! She also conceived a son in her old age. And this is the sixth month with her that was called barren. For with God, nothing is impossible.' (Or more correctly 'Also she conceived in her old age.' 

Luke also uses the word idou in chapter 2: 25 meaning Surprise, surprise! when Joseph and Mariam meet Simeon the former high priest in the Temple. He was forcibly retired by the paranoid and murderous Herod the Great. He is Mariam's relative. 
For reasons of self-preservation in those dangerous Herodian times they lived quite separately without contact.

'Behold Elizabeth! Also she conceived in her old age.' The 'also' of Luke 1 verse 35 must refer to a miracle relating to either pregnancy or old age ... or both. If Mariam was a young girl or even in her twenties it would not be a miracle that she would become pregnant as announced. A married Jewish woman would expect to have children as part of the reasons for marriage. In her case much more so as Joseph was inheritor of the house of David and her son would be a royal born at a prophetic time according to Daniel when many expected the Messiah. It had obviously not happened, much to her disappointment. Mariam was not some unknown woman but esteemed in her own right as a direct descendant of Aaron, with an authentic genealogy.

If she were in her 20s she should still expect to have children.

Let's make the first correction. Instead 'man' she is asking: 

'How can this be since I have not known (had relations) with my husband?' 

The Greek word here 'andra' does not mean 'man' in the sense of 'any man'. 'I have not been with a man.' That's what the RCC-Protestants say. They say she was a young girl engaged to Joseph but didn't know a man. Was she looking for other men? The text says in KJV she was 'betrothed'! Would she say to the angel that she was looking for someone else to have sex with? That's a crazy and blasphemous idea. 
Engagement

Non-Jewish sectarians are patently wrong because they fail to understand -- or do not want to understand -- what were Jewish marriages/ weddings customs. The answer is simple. They could crack open a Jewish encyclopedia or ask a local Jew at the synagogue. That is not too difficult. Instead they transpose Roman or even loose, modern ideas about 'engagement'. Not so.

Mariam was a daughter of Aaron -- a highly esteemed priestly family with only a few survivors. She was married to a royal son of the House of David. This took place according to ancient custom. Even common people of Israel in first century Judea and elsewhere around the world, followed these customs, according to Josephus and Philo. They kept registers in all the global depositories showing these customs of betrothal, wedding, birth were respected, with names of witnesses. Jews do this today. If a child of a man named Cohen = priest in Hebrew) does not conform to Hebrew rules of marriage, then all his offspring for ever cannot be considered viable as priests.

This regulation was essential if children were to be considered fit for marriage as priests and the same goes for kings and tribal leaders. Ten generations had to be verified by these interlocking methods where many independent registries confirm ancient families.

Betrothal
The first question to ask is: what did the Hebrew or first century Jews mean by 'betrothal'? Qiddushin or Betrothal in the Hebrew or Jewish sense gave the couple the right to live together with all rights of sexual relationship. If either man or wife wanted to separate, a divorce called a 'get' was needed before a judge.

So the shock reply of Mariam: 'How can this be?!' to a pregnancy has to be explained.

We further learn that she was still a virgin! In Jewish custom the term primarily has to do with menstruation. So when a woman says she is still a virgin it means that she was not menstruating or had not menstruated. Amongst the priestly class, no intercourse could take place until a wife had had three successive, regular monthly periods to show she was in good health. That's in Josephus and other sources of the time. The Talmud tractate Niddah written a few centuries later also says that a woman who was old and undergone the change and ceased to menstruate could also be considered a virgin.

Virgin
So the reason for her shock must be (a) she was 11 or 12 and had not menstruated and was naive and thought she never would, (b) she was married a long time she had not had regular periods, and Joseph had never 'known' her, or (c) she was old and had had her menopause some long while ago. Her infertility was certain to her.

Two other points. Firstly, context. The whole of Luke's first two long chapters is about women in their old age. In chapter one we have her cousin, Elizabeth/ Elisheva who was 'stricken in years'. Then we have Mariam / Miriam. The sister of Moses, Miriam the prophetess, married in her old age, Caleb, according to Jewish tradition. She had a flourishing and important family. Then in chapter two we have Anna or Hanna in Hebrew the prophetess of the tribe of Asher. Hanna as a name recalls that of the mother of Samuel the prophet who gave birth in old age, miraculously after much prayer. The NT Anna or Hanna was either 84 years old or much older depending how you read the text. She was 'advanced in years' v 36 having lived with her husband from her virginity seven years. That seems to confirm the Niddah laws of the Hebrew scriptures (and Talmud) are in force.

Secondly we can make a mathematical calculation of Mariam's age. I did this in section 15.17 of the book, Jesus, James, Joseph. It is based on Eusebius. After James the brother of Jesus was killed, Symeon the cousin of Jesus was made the Bishop / Supervisor or Governor/ Sagan of the ekklesia at Jerusalem. He was a younger son of of the younger brother of Joseph called Cleopas or Alpheus. Eusebius gives us his age at his death. We do not know the age of Maria, the wife of Cleopas when she started having children. But the calculation shows that Mariam was old when she had Jesus and later James, Jude, Simeon, Joses and probably three or so daughters.

Mariam was obviously old and past her menopause. That is why she was surprised at the announcement of a birth of a son to come.

Resurrecting James, the brother of Jesus

Roman Catholic propaganda in the Middle Ages buried, and denied even the existence of the first leader of the post-Resurrection church, James, the brother of Jesus. However, just before this attempted character assassination, Jerome, writing around 400, republished some remarkable early records about James. If he had been a clever counterfeiter he would never have published this book.

James, according to unanimous early accounts, prayed inside the Temple of Jerusalem. So confirms Jerome in his book On Illustrious Men. That is an extraordinary historical fact. No one was allowed inside the Holy Place of the Temple unless his genealogy was verified as a Levite or Aaronic priest. Such early accounts, that Rome failed to destroy completely, also say James had a throne in the Temple.  

In Hebrew law, sacred access was hereditary, generally from father to son. That would mean that not only James but Jesus sat on this throne and also their father Joseph.  The Greek New Testament supports this view.

Some people say James, the 'brother of Jesus' was not the son of Joseph, the father of Jesus, and his wife 'Mary'. He was rather the son of Alpheus or Cleopas. Is it true? This theory comes from Jerome. He may have invented it. It became official dogma of the Roman cult that he represented under 'pope' Damasus. 

It is also false.  

It is not hard to disprove this falsehood. Jerome did not believe it himself! Jerome expounded this view in a treatise written around 383 against Helvidius. Yet in a letter to one of his female supporters, Hediba, around 406 or 407 he destroyed the key point of his own argument by saying Mary of Cleopas and Mary the mother of James were different people. Very few people thought otherwise. Thus Jerome's libel has no foundation . He exposes his own disinformation plan against James in this private letter.

Leonardo's Jerome

Jerome's earlier public  libel became the official dogma of the Roman Catholic Church -- because it was a convenient lie. It reinforced another lie. That is about the perpetual virginity of what they call the 'Blessed Virgin Mary' (BVM). 

That fabrication was necessary, the popes argued, to encourage the adherence of pagans to their cult. Pagans believed in many virgin goddesses who gave birth and stayed virgins. Now with a quick sprinkle of holy water they could join the neo-pagan brand of Vatican 'Christianity', the new Roman State religion. They didn't have to change their views, only keep them quiet and worship the new virgin goddess! Such was the innovation of Jerome and 'pope' Damasus.  

Earlier Damasus had violently seized the bishopric, murdering hundreds of his Christian opponents who supported the more well-informed deacon Ursinus. Thus, at a time when bishops were voted into office, Damasus assured himself of more votes and death to opponents whom he now called 'heretics'.

Rome was in crisis. For pagans, the city's continuity depended on having  an eternal supply of Vestal Virgins for its main temple. But they could not find enough young virgins any more! Not because of conversion to Christianity but because of promiscuity. And no young girl fancied being buried alive as a Vestal Virgin if she was found to be no longer a virgin!

So the crooked 'pope' Damasus assigned his secretary, Jerome to come up with an alternative plan. Behold the Blessed Virgin Mary! With their twisted view of sex, Jerome proposed that both Joseph and Mary were perpetual virgins! The New Testament lists the siblings of Jesus as James, Simeon, Joses, Jude and probably three sisters. Did Joseph and Mary have seven or eight children and still remain virgins?

Hence it was necessary to find a father and mother for the brothers and sisters of Jesus, the family of Joseph and Mary.  Unfortunately for Rome, the NT is full of references that James was the brother of Jesus. So are the writings of early Christians and non-Christians.  That's why Rome banned the Bible in Greek and Hebrew. Jerome's Latin Vulgate modified previous translations to hide the facts. One thousand years later in 1516, Erasmus printed the Greek New Testament ... and Jerome's letters! It began to expose the facts again and spill Jerome's bad beans.

Paul in Galatians 1:19 says when he, Paul, was in Jerusalem, he did not see the apostles but 'only James, the Lord's brother.' In Acts 15 James presided the conference or ekklesia of God. Who was this James? And who wrote the book of James in the NT? 

This is a smoking gun identifying murderers and fraudsters. In the original order of Greek NT manuscripts, James's book is prominent. It followed the Gospels and Acts about Jesus. The pope's secretary, Jerome, displaced this book to near the end of the NT, after Paul's epistles. Why? And why is it still there today? Are Christians who agree to leave the seven pastoral books of James to Jude, brothers of Jesus, in Jerome's limbo still living in the spiritual Dark Ages?

Is it true that Alpheus or Cleopas had a wife called Mary? Was she the sister of Mary, the mother of Jesus? How come?

What do the earliest writings say? The early historian Hegesippus of the late first or second century is quite specific. He says that not only were these two women sisters but also Cleopas and Joseph were brothers. What are we to make of that?

Alpheus, also called Cleopas, was certainly the brother of Joseph but his wife was called Maria, not Mary, in Greek. Joseph's wife was called Mariam in the Greek NT, not Mary or Maria. Hardly any translation makes this distinction which is quite clear in the Greek. Why? The same reason no translation of these sectarians puts the books of the Bible in the right order of the early NT manuscripts or the Hebrew texts. The book of James follows the NT Pentateuch of the four gospels and Acts. That reinforces the unity of 22 Hebrew books (equal to the 22 letters of Hebrew, as Josephus says) and 27 Greek books, equal to the number of Greek letters. It produces a total of 49 (7x7) books.

If we go back to Biblical times, there is no reason to be surprised that two sisters had similar names -- or even the same names. Names were given for family and dynastic reasons. This is a similar practice as in royal families today. Princes are given several names which may include many names that are the same, relating to past kings.

Some of the children of both the families of families of Josepha and Cleopas had the same names. Both Cleopas and Joseph had a son called James, that is, Jacob in Hebrew or Greek. This Jacob refers to the great Patriarch Israel, the father and chief of the twelve tribes. Names were not given by whim and fancy as they are today but represent specific ancestors of great importance to the dynasty. Mariam or Miriam in Hebrew indicates that the line has Aaronic blood as Miriam was the sister of Aaron and Moses. 

It is therefore clear that this was a dynastic marriage between a daughter of the family of Aaron the priest, Luke 1:5, 36.  Joseph was a royal descendant, a son of David the King of Judah and hence of Israel, Matt 1:20.

Many sectarians or their 'scholars' want to try to cause confusion by saying this James must equal that James as the name is the same. This is simplistic. There were many Jameses. That is why the NT makes it clear about 'James the brother of the Lord', also defining him with a title: he is called 'James the Just'. The very earliest writers like Hegesippus, as quoted in Eusebius, are clear that James the Lord's brother was leader and successor of Jesus Christ to 'rule the ekklesia.' He also had a throne inside the Temple, the same as that of Jesus. Hegesippus says that when James died in the 60s CE, he was succeeded at the Jerusalem Temple by 'Simeon the son of Cleopas'. Obviously this Simeon was not the brother of James or the writer would have said simply 'Simeon his brother'. (Eusebius: Eccl History 3:32.)

Some other points:

1. United opinion of historic documents, not commentaries of Anglicans, Lutherans, Catholics and other sectarians, is unanimous. It is of little use listening to the fourth century Roman Catholic Church or treating the partisan theories of fifth century Jerome seriously. They had ulterior motives for distorting history. 

The earliest sources are clear. They are eye witnesses. First century Jewish commander and historian, Josephus was born in 37 CE. He probably spoke to relatives of the family of Jesus, maybe even James himself. He was Governor of Galilee in the 60s. Josephus was around 30 years old, James in his late fifties or sixties. Both James and Josephus were associated with the Temple and its priests. He says 'James, the brother of Jesus called the Messiah,' was defended by the most honest citizens against calumnies. The Roman governor also took his side. Josephus is quite clear: Jesus was anointed in a special way ('the Christ' in Greek). That confirms everyone treated Jesus as Anointed Davidic King.

Secondly, he describes in the 60s CE an attack and kangaroo court against James at the time of Roman procurator Albinus  (Jesus, James, Joseph, p4/5). This caused an international scandal. The high priest behind the plot was sacked by the Romans. This James was clearly highly placed and honored. When Josephus says that James was 'the brother of Jesus called the Anointed', it is obvious he was not a cousin or anything like that. In Jewish terms Christ means 'Anointed'. Hebrew 'Messiach' means 'king'. Jesus was executed because he was 'King of the Jews' according to Hebrew and Roman law. Jesus Christ is the title: King Jesus of the line of David. It is not a surname in the way Catholic and Protestants use it like John Smith. The line does not go through cousins when there are many brothers of Joseph.

Thus Josephus (who wasn't a Christian according to Origen) is as clear as he can be that James was the oldest son of Joseph after Jesus. Josephus is one of several eyewitnesses. He is not confused by mythic ideas centuries later about carpenters and the Catholic BVM 'Blessed Virfgin Mary'.

2. The early Christian writer Hegesippus (first & second century), quoted in Eusebius, affirms that there were many men called James (as there were many women called Maria, and variations Mariam, Mariamne, Meira etc). Eusebius was a librarian and had all the writings of Hegesippus on the authentic early ekklesia/ church and many others too. Today we are left only with extracts in Eusebius. He distinguishes the 'Jameses'. Eusebius says the James who ruled the ekklesia after the Resurrection  was called the 'brother of the Lord since he too was called Joseph's son and Joseph {was} Christ's father.' (Book 2 Eccl History).

He says early Christians called James 'the Just' -- a specific title of priesthood with 'the throne of the ekklesia in Jerusalem.' Eusebius quotes Hegesippus at length on James the Just's office, his work, prayer in the Temple and how he was assassinated just before the Roman wars.

3. There are many other documents from the first century which speak of James, the Lord's brother, as 'bishop of bishops' in Jerusalem. Bishop then meant Administrator or Superintendent, a political title, not a church office. Many in the RCC and Protestant churches reject these writings or bury them because they are hugely embarrassing to the myth of Rome as 'Mother Church' of Christianity myths about Peter and popes. This term 'bishop' has nothing to do with the office and comportment of RC or Anglican 'bishops' -- it means ruler of the tribes. The NT says Christ is Ruler of all the Earth and Bishop, Superintendent of our souls, 1 Peter 2:25.   

4. We have the unanimous voice of the New Testament confirming James's Davidic status and priestly importance.  In Acts 1:14, 12:17, Acts 15:13 v16 he defends 'David's tabernacle', and in v19 he says 'I judge...' for the whole Community of Israel. James is clearly the same figure, James the Just, brother of Christ etc as in Gal 1:19 'the Lord's (kuriou) brother'. 

5. In his book coming after the gospels and Acts, James, as brother of Jesus, the king of the Jews and Israel, alone is permitted to write to all twelve tribes of Israel in their worldwide dispersion. See James 1:1. This text is a great embarrassment to Jerome and other Catholics as he is obviously not addressing gentile members of their cult. He is writing as someone who sits on the throne in the Temple in Jerusalem as successor to Jesus. 

It is absurd today to maintain that this James is a cousin of Jesus. Facts refuse to stay buried -- even after 1500 years of propaganda.