Ateknos (ἄτεκνος) means "childless," "without children," from the alpha-privative and teknon (child). It appears in Luke 20:28–30 in the Sadducees' hypothetical challenge to Jesus about Levirate marriage: "the man died childless" (ateknos). The word also appears in Luke 20:29 and 20:30, underlining the repeated tragedy of a family line with no heir — the scenario constructed to try to make the resurrection seem absurd.
The Sadducees' scenario deliberately chose the most poignant human condition — ateknos, childlessness — to construct their theological trap. In ancient Israel, to die childless was a form of social death: no legacy, no continuation, no name carried forward. The Levirate law existed precisely to address this tragedy. But Jesus' answer shatters all categories: in the resurrection, people "neither marry nor are given in marriage" (Luke 20:35). The anxiety about childlessness, about continuing one's name, dissolves in the light of resurrection life. The resurrection is not the continuation of present arrangements but their transcendence. Those who are "childless" in earthly terms are not diminished before God — He is "not the God of the dead, but of the living" (Luke 20:38), and every person is precious in that living presence.