Texts in Conversation
In Mark, Jesus gives new names to Simon and the sons of Zebedee. In his Dialogue with Trypho, Justin connects this naming tradition with Jacob and Joshua, arguing that Jesus also gave them their names.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Genesis 32:28
Hebrew Bible
24 So Jacob was left alone. Then a man wrestled with him until daybreak. 25 When the man saw that he could not defeat Jacob, he struck the socket of his hip so the socket of Jacob’s hip was dislocated while he wrestled with him. 26 Then the man said, “Let me go, for the dawn is breaking.” “I will not let you go,” Jacob replied, “unless you bless me.” 27 The man asked him, “What is your name?” He answered, “Jacob.” 28 “No longer will your name be Jacob,” the man told him, “but Israel, because you have fought with God and with men and have prevailed.” 29 Then Jacob asked, “Please tell me your name.” “Why do you ask my name?” the man replied. Then he blessed Jacob there. 30 So Jacob named the place Peniel, explaining, “Certainly I have seen God face to face and have survived.” 31 The sun rose over him as he crossed over Penuel, but he was limping because of his hip. 32 That is why to this day the Israelites do not eat the sinew which is attached to the socket of the hip, because he struck the socket of Jacob’s hip near the attached sinew.
Date: 5th century BCE (final composition) (based on scholarly estimates)
Numbers 13:16
Hebrew Bible
14 from the tribe of Naphtali, Nahbi son of Vopshi; 15 from the tribe of Gad, Geuel son of Maki. 16 These are the names of the men whom Moses sent to investigate the land. And Moses gave Hoshea son of Nun the name Joshua. 17 When Moses sent them to investigate the land of Canaan, he told them, “Go up through the Negev, and then go up into the hill country 18 and see what the land is like, and whether the people who live in it are strong or weak, few or many, 19 and whether the land they live in is good or bad, and whether the cities they inhabit are like camps or fortified cities, 20 and whether the land is rich or poor, and whether or not there are forests in it. And be brave, and bring back some of the fruit of the land.” Now it was the time of year for the first ripe grapes.
Date: 5th century BCE (final composition) (based on scholarly estimates)
Mark 3:16–17
New Testament
13 Now Jesus went up the mountain and called for those he wanted, and they came to him. 14 He appointed 12 so that they would be with him and he could send them to preach 15 and to have authority to cast out demons. 16 To Simon he gave the name Peter; 17 to James and his brother John, the sons of Zebedee, he gave the name Boanerges (that is, “sons of thunder”); 18 and Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, Simon the Zealot, 19 and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.
Date: 60–75 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 106.3
Early Christian
3 And the statement that He renamed one of the apostles Peter, which is also written in His memoirs as having happened, along with His giving two other brothers, the sons of Zebedee, the name Boanerges, which means sons of thunder, was a sign that He was the One through whom Jacob was given the name Israel and Oshea was named Jesus (Joshua), the name under which the people who survived of those who came out of Egypt were brought into the land promised to the patriarchs.
Date: 155–160 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
“... And . . . it is said that [Jesus] changed the name of one
of the apostles to Peter; and . . . it is written in his
memoirs that this so happened, as well as that he
changed the names of two other brothers, the sons of
Zebedee, to Boanerges, which means “the sons of
thunder.” . . . (Dial. 106.3)
Among our Synoptic Gospels the translation Boanerges
appears only in Mark 3:17. This fact, conjoined with
the assumption that Justin is alluding to Mark’s
composition of “Peter’s reminiscences” (“his
memoirs”), suggests to some scholars that Justin knew
both Mark’s Gospel and Papias’s references to it. 85
There are, however, other possibilities. In itself the
reference to Boanerges tells us nothing of where Justin
found that datum, whether from what we know as
Mark’s Gospel or (as easily) from another tradition no
longer known to us. ...”
Black, C. Clifton
Mark: Images of an Apostolic Interpreter
(p. 96) University of South Carolina Press, 1994
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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