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| Turn around, bright eyes |
And Lamech lived a hundred and eighty-two years, and begat a son, and named him Noah . . . and when he saw the newborn child, he perceived that his eyes were different, and he was afraid that Noah would be the son of a watcher, but the Spirit of the Lord rested on Lamech, comforting his heart by making him know that he was not a descendant of the watchers, but it was the beginning of a new human progeny.
I had been reading Berger's Sealed Book because it had the endorsement of the highly intelligent John P. Pratt, but by the time I posted "Noah's eyes," I had already concluded that the book was very obviously fraudulent. Nevertheless, when I read that bit about how "his eyes were different," it rang true.
Well, it turns out that Noah's "different eyes" are a legitimately ancient tradition, found in a fragment from the Book of Noah which has come down to us as part of the Enoch literature. (This is presumably Berger's source, since he is obviously familiar with the Book of Enoch.)
And after some days my son Methuselah took a wife for his son Lamech, and she became pregnant by him and bore a son. And his body was white as snow and red as the blooming of a rose, and the hair of his head and his long locks were white as wool, and his eyes beautiful. And when he opened his eyes, he lighted up the whole house like the sun, and the whole house was very bright. And thereupon he arose in the hands of the midwife, opened his mouth, and conversed with the Lord of righteousness.
And his father Lamech was afraid of him and fled, and came to his father Methuselah. And he said unto him: 'I have begotten a strange son, diverse from and unlike man, and resembling the sons of the God of heaven; and his nature is different and he is not like us, and his eyes are as the rays of the sun, and his countenance is glorious. And it seems to me that he is not sprung from me but from the angels, and I fear that in his days a wonder may be wrought on the earth. And now, my father, I am here to petition thee and implore thee that thou mayest go to Enoch, our father, and learn from him the truth, for his dwelling-place is amongst the angels.'
Nothing seems more likely than that Noah's "bright" (blue/white) eyes should have been progressively exaggerated over time until they became eyes that lit up the whole house like the sun when he opened them.
