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.”
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