Boanerges

A few years ago, I came across an intriguing reference to Boanerges. Mark’s gospel records that the Savior called twelve disciples:

And James the son of Zebedee, and John the brother of James; and he surnamed them Boanerges, which is, The sons of thunder (Mark 3:17).

Here is the reference that captured my attention:

In the Gospel of Mark III.17, the “twins” James and John, the sons of Zebedee, are given by Jesus the name of Boanerges, which the Evangelist explains as meaning “Sons of Thunder.” This was long overlooked but eventually became the title of a work by a distinguished scholar, too soon forgotten, Rendel Harris. Here the Thunder Twins were shown to exist in cultures as different as Greece, Scandinavia and Peru. They call to mind the roles of Magni and Modi, not actually called twins, but successors of Thor, in Ragnarök. But to quote from Harris:

We have shown that it does not necessarily follow that when the parenthood of the Thunder is recognised, it necessarily extends to both of the twins. The Dioscuri may be called unitedly, Sons of Zeus; but a closer investigation shows conclusively that there was a tendency in the early Greek cults to regard one twin as of divine parentage, and the other of human. Thus Castor is credited to Tyndareus, Pollux to Zeus . . . The extra child made the trouble, and was credited to an outside source. Only later will the difficulty of discrimination lead to the recognition of both as Sky-boys or Thunder-boys. An instance from a remote civilization will show that this is the right view to take.

For example, Arriaga, in his Extirpation of Idolatry in Peru tells us that “when two children are produced at one birth, which they call Chuchos or Curi, and in el Cuzco Taqui Hua-hua, they hold it for an impious and abominable occurrence, and they say, that one of them is the child of the Lightning, and require a severe penance, as if they had committed a great sin.”

And it is interesting to note that when the Peruvians, of whom Arriaga speaks, became Christians, they replaced the name of Son of Thunder, given to one of the twins, by the name of Santiago, having learnt from their Spanish (missionary) teachers that St. James (Santiago) and St. John had been called Sons of Thunder by our Lord, a phrase which these Peruvian Indians seem to have understood, where the great commentators of the Christian Church had missed the meaning . . .

Another curious and somewhat similar transfer of the language of the Marcan story in the folk-lore of a people, distant both in time and place. . . will be found, even at the present day, amongst the Danes . . . Besides the conventional flint axes and celts, which commonly pass as thunder-missiles all over the world, the Danes regard the fossil sea-urchin as a thunderstone, and give it a peculiar name. Such stones are named in Salling, sebedaei-stones or s’bedaei; in North Salling they are called sepadeje-stones. In Norbaek, in the district of Viborg, the peasantry called them Zebedee stones! At Jebjerg, in the parish of Cerum, district of Randers, they called them sebedei-stones . . . The name that is given to these thunderstones is, therefore, very well established, and it seems certain that it is derived from the reference to the Sons of Zebedee in the Gospel as sons of thunder. The Danish peasant, like the Peruvian savage, recognised at once what was meant by Boanerges, and called his thunderstone after its patron saint.¹

Most sources tend to translate the name Boanerges – or “sons of thunder” – to mean that James and John were intense followers of the Lord.² And after reviewing the material in the New Testament, I could see how some came to that conclusion.

But as I reviewed Mr. Rendel J. Harris’ book on the Boanerges, I wondered if there was more to the fact that the Lord specifically called James and John by that name title. Perhaps it has something to do with that singular revelation about Peter, James, and John in D&C 7?

Sources:

1. de Santillana, Giorgio and Hertha von Dechend. Hamlet’s Mill. Phoenix and Turtle. 225-226. 21 December 2008. They quote Harris, Rendel J. Boanerges. Cambridge: University Press, 1913. 9ff. For a PDF version, see Boanerges at the Internet Archive. See also the post Belemnites and Thunderstones for a possible explanation of these thunderstones.↩
2. See, for example the LDS Bible Dictionary entry on Boanerges.↩