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Chapter 1: It Happened This Way

There are times when it matters who the ancestors are. Names like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Judah and Tamar, Salmon and Rahab, Boaz and Ruth, David and Bathsheba, Solomon and Zerubbabel would give any baby a distinctive pedigree. These names created a trail through equally numbered generations from Abraham to David, from David to the exile, and from the exile to the moment of this baby’s birth.

It happened this way.

Mary was discovered to be pregnant when she and Joseph were only engaged and had not had sex. Joseph determined to avoid alerting any press while quietly dropping the engagement. While he was still thinking this through, he had a dream.

“I need you, Joseph,” said the angel. “Please take care of Mary. Make her your wife and love her child. The child is fathered by God.”

“You mean she’s still a virgin?!” said Joseph.

“You will have a son,” continued the angel. “Name him Jesus, the one who saves his people from their sins.”

Joseph woke, tasted the sudden renewal of trust in his beloved Mary, and remembered the ancient prophecy of a virgin giving birth to a son, and naming that child Emmanuel, the one who is God with us.

The next day, Joseph did make a statement for the press. He married the pregnant woman he loved. They didn’t have sex until she gave birth, and he called the baby, Jesus.

I’m Matthew, an investigator in the Roman tax collection service, or at least I was before this case came upon me. I’m a specialist in trying to find out who people are and where they came from, how much they’re worth and whom they know. I think it’s only natural that I would be following this case, the greatest “Who’s it?” mystery in all our records.