Did you know that God once sent an Archangel to defeat a deadly demon, protect a young man, and save a marriage from destruction? And today, October 24, we celebrate that very Archangel's feast day. His name is Saint Raphael the Archangel, and there's a powerful reason why Catholics have called upon him for centuries as a protector against lust, a defender of purity, and a heavenly companion in times of spiritual danger. It all goes back to a terrifying story in the Bible. In the Book of Tobit, a young woman named Sarah was tormented by a demon called Asmodeus. This wasn't just any demon. He was associated with lust and destruction. And he had already killed seven men who tried to marry Sarah. Seven husbands. All dead on their wedding night. Then came a young man named Tobias. He was about to marry Sarah, but the same evil spirit threatened him. What Tobias didn't know was that God had already sent someone to help him. Saint Raphael the Archangel. Raphael accompanied ...
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1. Introduction One of the foremost questions that confronts interpreters of the Transfiguration is why Matthew, Mark and Luke mention the presence of Moses and Elijah. Scholars generally agree that Moses and Elijah appear because they are connected to each other in some way and that this connection informs the significance of the story as a whole. Footnote 1 However, there is no consensus regarding how Moses and Elijah are related, and consequently, there is significant disagreement about how their presence contributes to the Transfiguration. In this article, I argue that Moses and Elijah appear together because they received similar theophanies at Mount Sinai and, as a result, the Transfiguration should be read as a mountaintop theophany. I begin by surveying the main ways that scholars have interpreted Moses and Elijah at the Transfiguration. Footnote 2 I then go on to present fresh evidence for interpreting Moses and Elijah primarily as recipients of Sinai theophanies. Fin...