Editing Pythia (section)

===The collaboration during Oracular Productions===
In order to provide an oracle, procedures that focused on cooperation between consultants and the Delphic priest will be carried out. Before posing their queries to the Pythia, consultants would engage in a purification and sacrifice ritual. These questions were carefully adjusted, often with guidance from the priests (prophētai), to align with the expectations of Apollo’s wisdom. The Pythia that induced by divine possession or inhale sacred fumes will enter a trance state, hence delivered responses that were often ambiguous or cryptic.{{snf|Fontenrose|1978}}  

Scholars argues that the Pythia’s utterances were not unintelligible gibberish, as traditionally believed, but meaningful statements requiring collaborative decoding.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Maurizio |first=Lisa |date=2001b |title=The Voice At The Center Of The World: The Pythias’ Ambiguity And Authority |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv36zqbc.8 |access-date=2025-03-27 |website=JSTOR}}</ref> The interpretation of these responses was shaped by the consultants’ framing under the guidance of the priests. And hence to impact in sociopolitical context. The process helps to build connection between human and the divine, hence reducing the gap between people and gods. 

The oracular text was not only a fixed and authoritative pronouncement. It was also subject to negotiation and reinterpretation. A well-documented example is the oracle granted to King Croesus of Lydia, which stated, "If you cross the Halys, you will destroy a great empire." The king misinterpreted the statement, and Croesus started a catastrophic war that resulted in the collapse of his own empire after mistaking the words for a promise of triumph.<ref>{{Citation |last=Herodotus |title=Histories |date=1998-03-05 |work=Oxford World's Classics: Herodotus: The Histories |url=https://doi.org/10.1093/oseo/instance.00271233 |access-date=2025-03-27 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-953566-8}}</ref> This episode illustrates the ambiguity inherent in many oracles, which consultants often interpreted in ways that fulfills their desires or expectations. The text might be falsely interpreted for one's sake. 

Consultants were instrumental in shaping oracles by framing questions and selectively interpreting responses. This tackle questions conventional views of oracles as unilateral declarations of divine will, presenting them instead as dialogical and context dependent.<ref name=":1" />