Angels are not all female...

I was watching a Panorama last night on Trans children and one interviewee said that they knew they were trans from when they were at school and the teacher told them they could not be an Angel in the the navity play because "Angels are Girls".  This is offensive on so many levels ...but particularly to Angels ... mainly because as far as I know most of the named Angels in the Bible are boys.  So for culturally ignorant teachers everywhere here is your quick guide to Judeo-Christian Angels for when putting on Nativity plays.

Your Angel characters are...

1 Gabriel

Gabriel is a boy - Well, I think he's a boy anyway although he looks a bit androgynous in this depiction by by Jan van Eyck from 1434.  He also appears to have wings made from the LGBTQAlphabet flag...  Gabriel appears to Zacharias's wife Elizabeth and tells her that despite the fact she's getting on a bit she is pregnant with John the Baptist ... later he appears to Mary and tells her that God has made her pregnant with Jesus.  Later when these stories got a bit old Islam gave Gabriel a reboot and changed his back story considerably...

2 Michael

St Michael the Archangel is the one who had a war in heaven and sent Satan to Hell.  Later St Michael branched out with his own underwear label which was licenced under exclusive contract to Marks and Spenser.  St Micheal was chosen as the brand name for MandS underpants because he is a  the only Saint in the Old Testament - largely because as an Angel he manages to exist outside of time.  There's a lot of business with Michael, Abraham, Lot and Soddom which I don't have time to go into but suffice to say Michael is sort of Abraham's Jeeves.

3 Raphael

Raphael has a bust up with a Devil - perhaps the Devil - in the book of Enoch.  "Bind Azazel ...

...hand and foot, and cast him into the darkness: and make an opening in the desert, which is in Dudael, and cast him therein. And place upon him rough and jagged rocks, and cover him with darkness, and let him abide there for ever, and cover his face that he may not see light. And on the day of the great judgment he shall be cast into the fire."  

He also appears in the book of Tobit.  Tobit is a Jew who is deported to Naphtali where he spends a lot of time in exile for reasons which are too tedious to relate.  Tobit and Raphael have lots of adventures together in which Raphael feeling a bit conspicuous about his wings assumes the false identity of Azariah with hilarious consequences.  Tobit recieves lots of good advice from Raphael about his lady friends and how to use a fish's liver and heart to drive away demons ...

4 Uriel

Uriel is very much the Pete Best of Angels.  His main claim to fame being that he was the one who told Noah about the flood.  Uriel does a lot of watching.  Uriel has a lot to do with sorting out the messy business of Angels who have fallen and decided to take human mates creating Angel-Human hybrids called Nephilim...

 ...which is kind of how we know Angels have sexuals...

Chapter 20 of the Book of Enoch also mentions Raguel (the Angel of Justice) and Saraqâêl/Sariel but since not much known about either of them we'll skip them and end with everyone's favourite...

5 Satan

He's the one who has all the best tunes...