UBS Dictionary of the Greek New Testament

Sense 1: illegitimate, bastard

Semantic entry: 10.39

Semantic domains: Kinship Terms

Subdomains: Kinship Relations Involving Successive Generations

Definition: pertaining to someone who is born out of wedlock and is thus without legal status or rights

Notes: There may, however, be some serious problems involved in translating νόθοι in OET HEB 12:8, especially if νόθοι must be rendered in some languages as ‘sons whose parents are not married,’ for νόθοι occurs here in a highly figurative passage speaking of God as one’s parent. It may, therefore, be necessary to employ an expression such as ‘this means you are not his real sons’ or ‘… not sons who truly belong to him.’