one born out of wedlock. A bastard among the Greeks was despised, and exposed to public scorn, on account of his spurious origin. In Persia the son of a concubine is never placed on a footing with the legitimate offspring; any attempt made by parental fondness to do so would be resented by the relations of the legitimate wife, and outrage the feelings of a whole tribe. The Jewish father bestowed as little attention on the education of his natural children as the Greek: he seems to have resigned them, in a great measure, to their own inclinations; he neither checked their passions, nor corrected their faults, nor stored their minds with useful knowledge. This is evidently implied in these words of the Apostle: “If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards and not sons,” Heb 12:7-8. To restrain the licentious desires of the heart, Jehovah by an express law fixed a stigma upon the bastard, which was not to be removed till the tenth generation; and to show that the precept was on no account to be violated, or suffered to fall into disuse, it is emphatically repeated, “A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the Lord,”
Bastard (Deu 23:2, and Zec 9:6). Some understand by this word the offspring of prostitutes, but they forget that prostitutes were expressly forbidden to be tolerated by the law of Moses (Lev 19:29; Deu 23:17). The most probable conjecture is that which applies the term to the offspring of heathen prostitutes in the neighborhood of Palestine; since no provision was made by Moses against their toleration, and who were a sort of priestesses to the Syrian goddess Astarte (comp. Num 25:1, sq.; Hos 4:14; 1Ki 14:24; 1Ki 15:12; 1Ki 22:47; 2Ki 23:7).
That there existed such bastard offspring among the Jews, is proved by the history of Jephthah (Jdg 11:1-7), who on this account was expelled, and deprived of his patrimony.
Bastard. Among those who were excluded from entering the congregation, even to the tenth generation, was the bastard. Deu 23:2. The term is not, however, applied to any illegitimate offspring, born out of wedlock, but is restricted by the rabbins to the issue of any connection within the degrees prohibited by the law.
(nothus, one born out of wedlock),
(i.) the rendering in the Auth. Vers. of the Hebrews
By: Marcus Jastrow, Lewis N. Dembitz
In the English use of the word, a child neither born nor begotten in lawful wedlock; an illegitimate child. There is no Hebrew word of like meaning. The mamzer, rendered "bastard" in the A. V., is something worse than an illegitimate child. He is the offspring of a father and mother between whom there could be in law no binding betrothal: issuing either from adultery between a married woman and a man other than her husband, or from incest within the forbidden degrees of kinship or affinity defined in Lev. xviii. and xx. The child of a marriage simply forbidden, as that between a cohen and a divorced woman, is legitimate but "profane"; that is, a son can not officiate as a priest, a daughter is not eligible to marry a priest. But a mamzer, according to Deut. xxiii. 3, must not "enter the congregation of the Lord," that is, marry an Israelite woman, "nor shall his tenth generation enter," etc., which includes also the female mamzer (Ḳid. iii. 12; Mak. iii. 1). The older Halakah, however, was more rigorous, Akiba declaring any child of a forbidden connection a mamzer (Yeb. iv. 12, 13; Yer. ib. 6b; Bab. ib. 44a, 49a).
Whether the child of a daughter of Israel and of a Gentile or bondman is a mamzer or not, was hotly disputed both among the early sages, down to Rabbi Judah the Patriarch, and among the later teachers in Palestine and in Babylonia (Yeb. 23a, 45a). But the rule finally adopted is that such a child is not a mamzer, even when the mother is a married woman. This is the decision in the modern code (Shulḥan 'Aruk, Eben ha-'Ezer, 4. 19), though it is admitted that the child is unfit for the priesthood. Maimonides decides to the same effect (Issure Biah, xv. 3). The law laid down in Deuteronomy against the mamzer and against his distant offspring seemed so harsh that every opportunity was taken to confine it to the narrowest limits.
Where incest or adultery takes place among Gentiles, and the offspring embraces Judaism, the flaw in his descent is ignored. He is not deemed a mamzer (Shulḥan 'Aruk, Eben ha-'Ezer, 4, 21). The child of an Israelite by an unconverted Gentile mother is a Gentile, and when converted becomes an Israelite to all purposes, without regard to his father.
As shown under Agnates, the illegitimate child of a Jew (unless born of a Gentile woman or a bond-woman), even a mamzer, inherits from his natural father and other kindred (for example, his father's legitimate sons), just as if he were legitimate; the words of Scripture, "if he have no son" (Num. xxvii. 8), being taken literally "a son from any source," except the son of a Gentile or bondwoman, who follows the status of his mother (Yeb. ii. 5); and the child being bound by all duties flowing from his or her natural kinship.
This construction of the law runs counter to ancient popular sentiment, which crops out in the historic books. The legitimate sons of Gilead drove Jephthah from his home because he was the "són of another woman" (Judges xi. 2). Where a child is born in wedlock, the presumption in favor of its being the offspring of the husband is very strong, as in other systems of law. The Roman law says: "pater est quem justæ nuptiæ demonstrant." But the Jewish law, unlike the English common law, does not uphold this presumption when the child is born so soon after the nuptials ("nissu'im") that it must have been begotten before them. Even when the date of birth points to conception after the betrothal ("erusin")—which in olden times preceded the wedding by several months—the presumption of the betrothed man being the father is comparatively weak, as a connection between him and the bride while she is "at her father's house," though not a deadly sin on the part of either, is an act of lewdness (Shulḥan 'Aruk, Eben ha-'Ezer, 4, 27; see Ket. 36a).
On the general principle that a person's confession of his or her own turpitude is not admissible as legal testimony, the wife and mother can not, by her assertion, stamp her offspring as an adulterine Bastard. For the rules of presumption and evidence in cases of doubt, see Shulḥan 'Aruk, Eben ha-'Ezer, 4, 14-16.