Quote Originally Posted by Mercen-X View Post
Indiana is a bit of a superstitious nut too, not that it doesn't benefit him. He had no real reason to avoid looking at the Ark as it was opened and no logical reason to assume it was dangerous, but he closed his eyes anyway and told Marion to do the same. It feels as though it demands respect for what might otherwise be dismissed as laughable folklore which was the precise attitude held by Belloq shortly before he and his were slaughtered by supernatural powers.
Really? Have you ever actually paid attention to this film? Do you remember at the beginning when he's going on to Brody about how it's all a bunch of hocus pocus and he doesn't believe in curses and whatnot? Indy is anything but a superstitious nut. He's observant and intelligent and he understands how the bible and all that folklore was written and what it must mean if he were in the actual presence of the ark. The whole point of Indy's realization to close his eyes is to be humble when in presence of the lord, which is something that if anyone were in the presence of the ark (which is an artifact in representation of god himself) should probably be smart enough to guess.

Quote Originally Posted by some imdb stuff
A deleted scene was shot where Imam, the wise man translating the markings on the headpiece of the Staff of Ra also translates another set of markings, which gives a warning about not looking into the Ark. Since this scene is not in the movie, it is a little confusing as to how Indy knew that he could only survive the opening of the Ark by closing his eyes. Perhaps he simply remembered the picture of the Ark he showed to the army officers; in it, an entire army is decimated, but the people carrying the Ark remain unaffected. So he may have concluded that opening the Ark is not necessarily deadly to anyone in close proximity, and that it is the visual contact that was deadly. Another option is that he remembered a relevant passage from the Bible (1 Samuel 6:19), where God "smote" the men of Beth Shemesh for looking into the Ark. Plus, there's a brief moment when Marcus Brody says the light from the Ark could lay waste to everything it touched, further warning of the Ark's power.