Tuesday, January 03, 2017

Open my eyes...

Unique to the Babylon version, however, is the specific instruction to open the image’s eye (īn ili šuāti tepette). Although the text does not explain or elaborate on why this was done, it was, presumably, intended to animate the statue’s eyes, just as the other sensory organs and limbs had been activated. Despite the lack of an explicit reference to this act in the Nineveh version, the repeated commands to set the image’s eyes toward the rising sun suggest that the opening of the eye(s) may also have been a feature of the pīt pî at Nineveh.—The "Image of God" in the Garden of Eden, page 65

<idle musing>
Think of some of the ramifications for some of the prophetic texts if—as I think probable—the prophets were aware of these rituals...
</idle musing>

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