Gabriel

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.