In
Arabic cultures, Gabriel is depicted as an archangel who sends messages from
God to certain people. Gabriel is not called an archangel in the Bible, but is
so called in Intertestamental period sources like the Book of Enoch. Along with
Raphael and Michael, Gabriel is referred to as a saint in the Roman Catholic,
Anglican, Lutheran, Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches.
The trope of Gabriel blowing a
trumpet blast to indicate the Lord's return to Earth is especially familiar in
Negro spirituals. However, though the Bible mentions a trumpet blast preceding
the resurrection of the dead, it never specifies Gabriel as the trumpeter.
Different passages say different things: the angels of the Son of Man; the
voice of the Son of God; God's trumpet; or simply "a trumpet will
sound".
In related traditions, Gabriel is
again not identified as the trumpeter. In Judaism, trumpets are prominent, but
they seem to be blown by God himself, or sometimes Michael. In Zoroastrianism,
there is no trumpeter at the last judgement. In Islamic tradition, it is
Israfil who blows the trumpet, though he is not named in the Qur'an. The
Christian Church Fathers do not mention Gabriel as the trumpeter as well as
early English literature. The earliest known identification of Gabriel as the
trumpeter comes in the year 1455 in Byzantine art, as an illustration in an
Armenian manuscript showing Gabriel sounding his trumpet as the dead climb out
of their graves. Two centuries later becomes the first known appearance of
Gabriel as the trumpeter in English culture, in John Milton's Paradise Lost.
In Latter-day Saint theology,
Gabriel is believed to have lived a mortal life as the prophet Noah. The two
are regarded as the same individual; Noah being his mortal name and Gabriel
being his heavenly name.
