"... Three significant images appearing in the parable are blindness, leading, and the pit. In the initial situation presented in this parable, Q clearly presents a point of contact with knowledge out of everyday experience, namely, the general truth that blind people cannot function as guides for other blind people. In conjunction with the comments above concerning the blind individuals as characters, it can be argued that the statement already appeals for a metaphorical transfer to the theological realm of “sight” ... Metaphorically, blindness and seeing are images often employed as a commentary upon one’s ethical or spiritual state. Besides Hebrew Bible examples of this image (compare Isaiah 6:10; also LXX Psalm 145:8), Plato could refer to the “blind” as those who could not recognize goodness, beauty, or truth (Compare the Republic 6.484d; 6.506c; 7.518c or Phaedrus 270e) and gnostic groups used “blindness” (compare the Gospel of Phillip 60 or Gospel of Thomas 28) as a description of the unenlightened ..."