[3] Dissenting opinions are not entirely absent from scholarship, one example being Nicolas Wyatt's argument that there are alternative explanations for word forms referring to them usually taken to be grammatically dual (for example presence of an enclitic in all of them),[10] but interpreting them as a single god remains a minority view.
[3] The metaphorical use of the word gepen to refer to people in the Hebrew Bible (Hosea 10:1, Psalm 80) is agreed to not be an indication that a god whose name was a cognate of Gupan's was ever worshiped by the Israelites.
[3] Messenger deities, such as this pair, as well as Qodesh-wa-Amrur and the analogous servants of Yam (left nameless in known texts) are considered the lowest ranked members of the Ugaritic pantheon by modern researchers.
[12] Manfred Krebernik proposes that the names of both Gupan and Ugar reflect the fact that their master, Baal, was believed to be responsible for vegetation in Ugaritic religion.
[14] The word ġlm, conventionally translated as "youth" or "lad," was commonly employed as a designation of lesser deities,[15] ‘nn ilm means "divine clouds,"[16] dll was the name of an ordinary profession (based on possible Akkadian cognates presumed to be that of a scout, messenger or mediator),[17] while ‘dd was a term used in similar contexts as dll, presumed to be a diplomatic term.
[18] Since no attestations of either Gupan or Ugar are known from ritual texts,[19] and no theophoric names unambiguously invoking them have been identified,[3] it has been suggested that they might have only functioned as literary characters, rather than as actively worshiped deities.
[35] It has been pointed out that this scene is an example of a motif well attested in Mesopotamian literature (for example in Nergal and Ereshkigal or Gilgamesh, Enkidu and the Netherworld): a person venturing to the underworld is told how to avoid specific dangers they might face.
"[39] This section is not considered an indication that Gupan and Ugar were also servants of Mot, and Smith and Pitard point out that it was possible for divine messengers to act at the orders of deities other than their usual masters.