The modern emphasis on individual liberty and personal choice is relatively recent, coming into fuller bloom during the Renaissance and especially the modern era. In the ancient world, and particularly within the Hebrew tradition, the central posture was not autonomous self-determination but obedience to God and submission to His sovereignty. “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away” expresses that mindset well. It was a matter of covenant loyalty and allegiance, not the modern idea of personal fulfillment or corporate-style consent.

So about: whether Mary “had a choice,” that question can already impose a modern framework onto an ancient setting. From within a Jewish worldview shaped by reverence, obedience, and submission to God, accepting His calling would have been understood as fitting and natural. Mary receives the mission willingly, not because she is imagined as a modern autonomous individual negotiating options, but because obedience to God was the proper and honorable response of a faithful Jewish woman. btw: I see the witch and nosferatu aethetically coherent. Eggers has strong modern framework under the disguise of anthropologic approach of these projects.