Visitation: Why Did Luke Write About Mary and Elizabeth?

Why among the Gospels does Luke alone tell us about the Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth? Did this really happen? Was it easy to walk from Nazareth for four to five days over the hill country? Was it normal for a Middle Eastern woman to do this alone? For what purpose did Luke write this story?

#Visitation, #GetUsedToDifferent, #JoyousMysteries

[pollypeguin]

Luke never said Mary travelled solo. That’s an assumption! 🙄

[JackRT]

Thanks for this Bill. It's hard to find good scholarly commentary on this Jesus/John connection because everyone just seems to take it at face value and leave it at that, while I tend to agree with you that a familial connection and the whole visitation story of Mary and Elizabeth is entirely unlikely for all the reasons you mention. As to what theological point Luke was making in creating this motif, I can only guess that he was trying to link the great priestly line of Israel coming down through John with the great Davidic-Messiah line coming down through Jesus.
Question: Can you point me to other scholarly commentary on this? Perhaps Raymond Brown? Or the context scholars?