I'm sorry if my post interrupted your flocking with the liberation theory theologian. Please carry on. The enemy of your enemy is your friend.Birds of a feather flock together..there was ABSOLUTELY no reason for Mary to go to Bethlehem even if it was the ancestral land of Joseph. In those days and for thousands of years--PREGNANT jewish girls had their babies in the houses of their MOTHERS or other female relatives. They did not go off on a donkey on a long arduous journey whilst "HEAVY WITH CHILD" ---to unknown accommodations and no female relatives.
That part of the story never made sense to me.
so are the brave, mary.
they were itinerants, as was jesus to follow surly not the clan type of their prototype jewish culture. then or now.
Trying to conceal a bastard's identity is not bravery.
And that's why the bird has a relatively constant number of feathers,
that her bad ones die off, so that she can fly.