Among the Angels
Raphael in the wider angelic world. The name means "God heals"; he binds Azazel in 1 Enoch, stands among the seven who attend the throne, and appears in rabbinic tradition as one of the three who visited Abraham and as the angel who healed him. Plus the long argument about how many archangels there are, and the scholarly comparison with Israfil in Islam.
Part of Saint Raphael
42 moments in this segment.
- - Botticini: The Three Archangels with Tobias. Francesco Botticini, c. 1471, Uffizi. Michael, Raphael and Gabriel walk together with Tobias, one of the defining images of the three named archangels.
- - Filippino Lippi: Tobias and the Three Archangels. Michael, Raphael and Gabriel walking with Tobias, painted 1485, Galleria Sabauda, Turin. Raphael holds the boy by the hand while Tobias carries the fish.
- - Botticini workshop: The Three Archangels with Young Tobias. A workshop version of the Three Archangels with Tobias, 1485-97, Bavarian State Painting Collections.
- - Master of Marradi: Virgin in Glory with the Seven Archangels. A Florentine panel of c. 1490 of the Virgin surrounded by the seven archangels, Courtauld Gallery.
- - Botticelli: Holy Trinity altarpiece. Botticelli, 1491-94. The Convertite Trinity, associated with the Tobias and Raphael predella scenes. Accepted at 950 px.
- - Botticelli: Pala delle Convertite. Sandro Botticelli, 1491-93. The Trinity altarpiece for the Convertite, whose predella includes Tobias with the archangel.
- - Pedro Fernandez: Vision of the Blessed Amadeo. A 1513 Spanish-Italian painting of Amadeo of Portugal's vision, associated with the tradition of the seven named archangels.
- - The Seven Archangels, 1570-1619 print. An engraving of Saint Michael and the seven archangels, 1570-1619, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
- - Archangels, 19th-century icon. A 19th-century Orthodox icon of the archangels together.
- - Medieval angel hierarchy, Christian iconography, 1851. An 1851 engraving from a study of Christian iconography illustrating the medieval hierarchy of angels. Accepted at 886 px.
- - Four Archangels, St John's Church, Warminster. An 1888 English church decoration showing four archangels together, Raphael among them.
- - The Seven Archangels. An early 20th-century devotional image of the seven archangels together, Raphael among them. Accepted at 650 px.
- - Uriel, the Forgotten Archangel. A news report noting that Latin Catholic tradition names Michael, Raphael and Gabriel as the archangels, while Coptic Christians of Eritrea and parts of Jewish tradition add Uriel, an illustration of the competing archangel lists.
- - George Nickelsburg: The Temple According to 1 Enoch. George W. E. Nickelsburg, the leading modern commentator on 1 Enoch, presents at the Enoch and the Temple conference at Utah State University. In 1 Enoch, Raphael is one of the archangels who petition God against the Watchers and who binds the fallen angel Azazel.
- - The Rise of the Satan in Early Second Temple Judaism - Christopher Rollston. Christopher Rollston traces how the figure of the satan developed in early Second Temple Judaism, at a conference on evil in Second Temple Judaism at St Mary's University, London. The same period produced the named archangels, Raphael among them.
- - Seven Archangels, Castell Coch. A decorative scheme of the seven archangels at Castell Coch, Wales. Photograph taken 2015.
- - Angels and Exegesis: Secondary Powers in Rabbinic Literature - Steven Sacks. Steven Daniel Sacks of Cornell College lectures at the University of Chicago Divinity School on how rabbinic midrash handled angels and other 'secondary powers' alongside God. The rabbinic corpus is one of the settings in which Raphael appears as a named angel of healing.
- - Demons and Evil Spirits in Early Judaism and Christianity - Matthias Henze. Matthias Henze of Rice University lectures at the University of Arizona on Second Temple speculation about demons, including incantations and exorcism liturgies. This is the world in which Tobit's Asmodeus and the angel who binds him were imagined.
- - Botticini: the little dog (detail). A detail of the small dog in Botticini's Three Archangels with Tobias, the animal that accompanies Tobias in the Book of Tobit.
- - Four Archangels window, Tackley. A stained-glass window of four archangels at St Nicholas, Tackley, England. Photograph taken 2016. Accepted at 700 px.
- - Botticini: The Three Archangels (full view). A modern photograph of the Botticini Three Archangels with Tobias in the Uffizi, Florence.
- - Basic Beliefs of Islam: Angels - University of Nottingham. Dr Musharraf Hussain and Dr Jon Hoover discuss the Islamic doctrine of angels, covering Gabriel, the angels of death, and Harut and Marut. Scholars of comparative religion often set Raphael alongside the Islamic Israfil, the angel of the trumpet.
- - Raphael and Uriel, Howick church window. A stained-glass window of the archangels Raphael and Uriel at St Michael and All Angels, Howick. Photograph taken 2017.
- - Seven Archangels window, St Michael's Brighton. A stained-glass window of the seven archangels in St Michael and All Angels, Brighton. Photograph taken 2018.
- - The Four Archangels, Holy Trinity Hull. A stained-glass window of four archangels including Raphael, Holy Trinity, Kingston upon Hull. Photograph taken 2018.
- - Angels in the Hebrew Bible - André Wénin. Biblical scholar André Wénin surveys the role of angels in the Hebrew Bible for a university MOOC on Eastern beliefs. Named angels such as Raphael appear only in the later, Second Temple layer of the literature.
- - Gabriel, Michael and Raphael together. A modern devotional grouping of the three named archangels. Photograph taken 2019.
- - Visions of the Afterlife in the Bible and Dead Sea Scrolls - Ronald Hendel. Ronald Hendel of UC Berkeley surveys the Second Temple imagination of heaven, angels and the afterlife as reflected in the Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls, delivered for the Society for Asian Art at the Asian Art Museum.
- - The Book of Enoch Explained - ReligionForBreakfast. Religious-studies scholar Andrew Henry gives an academic overview of 1 Enoch, the Second Temple text in which the archangels Michael, Raphael, Gabriel and Uriel appear as named heavenly figures who intercede over the Watchers.
- - Angels: A History - Peter Stanford. Author and journalist Peter Stanford discusses his book tracing the origins of angels across Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and their persistence in modern belief. Raphael belongs to the small group of angels given proper names in the tradition.
- - Scribes, Stars, and Demons in Ancient Judaism - Annette Yoshiko Reed. Annette Yoshiko Reed of NYU lectures at UCLA on scribal knowledge, astral speculation and demonology in ancient Judaism and the Hellenistic Near East. Reed is a leading scholar of the Enochic literature in which Raphael appears.
- - Origins of the Sefirot and the Tree of Life. An academic account of the earliest systematic Kabbalistic emanations in Isaac the Blind and Azriel of Gerona. Later Kabbalistic literature assigns archangels including Raphael to particular sefirot.
- - Who Is Metatron? The Angel of 3 Enoch. Justin Sledge examines the origins of Metatron in the fifth- or sixth-century Sefer Hekhalot, or 3 Enoch. The Enochic literature is also where the archangel Raphael acquires his role among the angels who stand before the throne.
- - Angels from a Jewish Perspective - Rabbi Jeff Berger. Rabbi Jeff Berger presents Jewish angelology at an interreligious symposium hosted by the Al-Mahdi Institute, a Shi'i seminary in Birmingham. Comparative settings like this are where scholars place Raphael alongside the Islamic angel Israfil.
- - Biblically Accurate Angels Explained - ReligionForBreakfast. Andrew Henry sets out what the biblical and Second Temple texts actually say about angelic beings, against the popular internet caricature. Named archangels such as Raphael belong to the later Second Temple stratum rather than the earliest Hebrew texts.
- - Angels in Judaism: From the Biblical Period to Josephus. Gideon Amir traces how Jewish conceptions of angels developed from the Hebrew Bible through the Second Temple period, the era in which named archangels including Raphael first appear in texts such as Tobit and 1 Enoch.
- - How the Divine Glory Became the First Angel of the Sefirot. Justin Sledge traces how early medieval Jewish thinkers turned the divine Glory into an angelic figure at the head of the sefirotic system, background to the later Kabbalistic placement of Raphael among the emanations.
- - Who Are Angels and What Is Their Purpose? - Jewish Learning Institute. Rabbi Moshe Bryski lectures on the role of angels in Jewish thought at the Jewish Learning Institute's national retreat. Raphael appears in this tradition chiefly as an agent of healing.
- - The Quest of the Historical Metatron - Daniel Boyarin, Yale. Daniel Boyarin of UC Berkeley delivers Yale Divinity School's Nathaniel W. Taylor Lecture on the origins of the angel Metatron, a case study in how named angelic figures emerged from Jewish tradition.
- - Raphael Heals Abraham: The Angel in Parashat Vayeira. Rabbi Aaron Raskin teaches the rabbinic tradition that identifies one of Abraham's three visitors in Genesis 18 as Raphael, sent to heal Abraham after his circumcision. The identification is midrashic rather than stated in the biblical text.
- - Gabriel, Michael and Raphael, San Michele all'Adige. Frescoes of the three named archangels in the church of San Michele all'Adige, Italy. Modern photograph of the older paintings.
- - On My Right Michael, On My Left Gabriel: Angels in Ancient Jewish Culture. A discussion of Mika Ahuvia's academic study of angels in late-antique Judaism, which argues that angels were embedded in everyday song, prayer and ritual rather than confined to mystical speculation.