John Witte, Jr is Jonas Robitscher Professor of Law and Director of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University. His most recent publications include Law and Protestantism: The Legal Teachings of the Lutheran Reformation (2002), The Reformation of Rights: Law, Religion and Human Rights in Early Modern Calvinism (2007), and Christianity and Law: An Introduction (2008) co-edited by Frank S. Alexander.

• Preface and acknowledgements; Introduction: the paradoxes of illegitimacy; 1. Suffer the innocent children: illegitimacy in early Judaism and Christianity; 2. Woe to bastards: the classic Roman law of illegitimacy and legitimation; 3. The wages of sin: sex, marriage and illegitimacy in medieval canon law; 4. Heir of no one: the English common law of illegitimacy and its reforms; 5. The rights of all children: the new law of non-marital childhood in America and beyond; Concluding reflections; Bibliography; Biblical index; Index.

'John Witte has done it again! Sins of the Fathers demonstrates what his readers always expect from him: painstaking historical research, lucid presentation, plus jurisprudential and theological gravitas. But here we see even more: the profound humanity of this man, born of his familial experience, and revealed in the book's moving dedication, which gives us the leitmotif of this exceptional work.' David Novak, University of Toronto