“... Other motifs in the biblical paradise traditions may have further contacts in West Semitic literature. Like Genesis 3, CAT 1.23 may contain the motif of the divine refuge guarded by a divine figure: born of divine parents, the “gracious gods” are expulsed into the desert for seven or eight years, and finally find refuge in a cultivated reserve with a divine guardian. According to de Moor (“East of Eden,” ZAW 100 [1988], 106), CAT 1.100 and 1.107 “seem to presupppose a Canaanite tradition about the garden of Eden.” Despite de Moor’s departures from less controversial approaches to these texts (see B. A. Levine and J. M. de Tarragon, “

Shapshu Cries out in Heaven: Dealing with Snake-Bites at Ugarit (KTU 1.100, 1.107),” RB 95 [1988] 481–518, esp. 505– 18; D. Pardee, Les textes para-mythologiques de la 24e Campagne (1961) [Ras Shamra-Ougarit IV; Paris: Editions Recherche sur Civilisations, 1988], 223–25, 255–56), they should prompt reconsideration of the assumptions about Mesopotamian influence on the biblical traditions of paradise. The direction of influence is unclear; nor is it evident that these paradise traditions were not part of the stock of mythology common to Mesopotamia and the Levant. ...”