  Regarding the first prerequisite, superior lineage, Halevi does not state explicitly whether the influence of parents and relatives should be construed in biological or psychological terms, or perhaps both. Interpreters have tended to understand it as being biological or at least quasi-biological, insofar as it is the means by which qualified individuals are endowed with or inherit a divine faculty that comes after the intellect and facilitates contact with God as well as knowledge of truths with only the slightest reflection. (K 1: 95) According to the sage, Adam, who was God's own creation and perfectly made, was endowed with it. However, he did not succeed in transmitting this faculty to all or even most of his offspring. On the contrary, for generations it manifested itself only in unique individuals like Abel, Seth, Enosh, Noah and others on through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, each of whom was the choicest offspring of his father. Sometimes it even skipped over a generation. Ultimately, however, all of Jacob's sons proved fit for the divine order, and eventually all of their offspring, both male and female, came to be endowed with it. It is noteworthy that the presence or absence of this faculty is not attributed to a divine choice, but rather to the fitness or unfitness of the potential recipients. Still, this unusual pattern of transmission does not make a strictly biological explanation particularly compelling. Further, when it is recalled that the Khazar king originally spoke of the secret character of the divine order in conjunction with the secret character of certain souls, (K 1:4) a psychological or even cultural mode of transmission becomes more plausible. This is especially so when the sage later speaks of the divine faculty or capacity as “the eye of prophecy,” (K 2:24) and later still as the “inner eye” which is “almost” the same as “the imaginative faculty as long as it serves the intellectual faculty.” (K 4:3) All of these remarks all suggest that he is probably referring to either an exceptionally powerful internal sense or to a distinctive way of seeing or interpreting what is seen, which might help to explain the link between familial ties and experiencing prophecy. Yet even here, Halevi's language is sufficiently equivocal to allow for a wide range of interpretations.