Musings from an Atheist Theologian

First of all, a quick refresher from the end of Part 1: If the story of the birth of Jesus has any truth to it, and if he really was the result of Mary getting pregnant without Joseph's help, then it stands to reason that somebody had to be the daddy. Being an atheist, I rule out the presence of God, so the question is obvious: is there another candidate? It turns out that the answer is not uncomplicated, but there is a clear possibility. More than that, we may even have an artifact of the gentleman in question.  But as we did before, we must establish some points of fact upfront related to this post's topic. Sex outside of marriage was frowned upon even more strongly than in today's fundamentalist Christianity.  To be blunt in my choice of examples, women were called whores just for getting divorced. (An echo of this exists even in Jesus' own Sermon on the Mount, where divorce for any reason other than marital unfaithfulness is considered blameworthy.) This was a pat