Gabriel Levy

About

Gabriel Levy is a comparative historian of religion. He is Professor in the Science of Religion at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway, where he teaches on method and theory in the scientific study of religion, middle-eastern religious history, and the relation between religion, science, and technology. Gabriel studies religions from a holistic perspective and looks for ways to integrate the harder sciences into scholarship in the humanities. He studies the ways religious individuals and groups imagine their communicative relations with superhuman agents, and particularly how various technologies of mediation, such as divination and literacy, change the way this relation is organized and embodied. To do this he draws on anthropology, philosophy, and the mind sciences. His first book Judaic Technologies of the Word (Routledge 2014) took insights from biology and the mind sciences to explore the effects of literacy on religious cognition and the origins of Judaism. Gabriel's most recent book Beyond Heaven and Earth: A Cognitive Theory of Religion (MIT Press) develops the groundwork for an anomolous monist (D. Davidson) approach to religion and apply it to specific real world examples, including fictionality, the concept of life, kabbalistic information, animal agency, and intimacy. Get it here.

Research

Agency, Action and Embodiment (AAE)

Publications

Beyond Heaven and Earth: A Cognitive Theory of Religion (MIT Press)(Open Access)

One of the only books published by MIT on the subject of religion. Evolutionary and developmental perspective with theoretical point of departure in semantic holism and anomalous monism (Donald Davidson).

2026

Levy, Gabriel; Lapidot, Elad. (2026) The Concept of Life in Judaism.
Academic chapter

2025

Kvandal, Halvor; Levy, Gabriel. (2025) Green Apocalypse: A Biocultural Perspective on End of the World Narratives in Environmental Movements. Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science
Academic article
Levy, Gabriel John. (2025) Collective Intentionality and the Study of Religion: Social Ontology and Empirical Research, written by Andrea Rota. Numen
Book review

2024

Levy, Gabriel John. (2024) A welcome intervention, but stops just where things will get interesting. Religion, Brain and Behavior
Academic article
Zickfeld, Janis H.; Ścigała, Karolina A.; Elbæk, Christian T.; Michael, John; Tønnesen, Mathilde; Levy, Gabriel; Ayal, Shahar; Thielmann, Isabel; Nockur, Laila; Peer, Eyal. (2024) Effectiveness of ex ante honesty oaths in reducing dishonesty depends on content. Nature Human Behaviour
Academic article

2023

Levy, Gabriel John. (2023) Teaching J. Z. Smith in Scandinavia.
Academic chapter
Levy, Gabriel John. (2023) Thinking about John Thinking about Cognitive Scientists Thinking about Religion. Religious Studies Review
Academic literature review
Levy, Gabriel John. (2023) Taking “Religion” Seriously: Essays on the Discursive Study of Religion, By Teemu Taira. Journal of the American Academy of Religion
Book review

2022

Levy, Gabriel. (2022) Beyond Heaven and Earth: A Cognitive Theory of Religion. MIT Press
Academic monograph

2021

Levy, Gabriel. (2021) Blasphemy as transgressive speech, a natural history.
Academic chapter

2020

Levy, Gabriel. (2020) You Can Lead a Horse to Water, But You Can’t Make It Drink. Method & Theory in the Study of Religion
Academic literature review

2019

Kvandal, Halvor; Knowles, Jonathan; Levy, Gabriel. (2019) Prone to Believe in God.The Cognitive Science of Religion and its Normative Implications for Theist Religion. NTNU
Doctoral thesis

2018

Levy, Gabriel. (2018) Let There Be Light: The Word of God in the Jewish Tradition, Past, Present, and Future. AJS Perspectives: The Magazine of the Association for Jewish Studies
Popular science article

2017

Levy, Gabriel; Kyselo, Miriam. (2017) Dynamic Perspectives on Defamation of Religion among Jewish NGOs.
Academic chapter
Levy, Gabriel. (2017) Can Fictional Superhuman Agents have Mental States?. Method & Theory in the Study of Religion
Academic article
Mitkidis, Panagiotis; Ayal, Shahar; Shalvi, Shaul; Heimann, Katrin; Levy, Gabriel; Kyselo, Miriam; Wallot, Sebastian; Ariely, Dan; Roepstorff, Andreas. (2017) The effects of extreme rituals on moral behavior: The performers-observers gap hypothesis. Journal of Economic Psychology
Academic article

2016

Levy, Gabriel. (2016) Cognitive Linguistics and Religion: Surveying the Field.
Academic chapter

2015

Levy, Gabriel; Mitkidis, Panagiotis. (2015) Religion and Marketing: The Attractiveness of Religion as a Moral Brand.
Non-fiction chapter
Martin, Laura; Adams, Rachel; Bateman, Ashley; Bik, Holly; Hawks, John; Hird, Sarah; Hughes, David; Kembel, Steven; Kinney, Kerry; Kolokotronis, Sergios-Orestis. (2015) Evolution of the indoor biome. Trends in Ecology & Evolution
Academic literature review

2010

Levy, Gabriel. (2010) "Rabbinic Philosophy of Language: Not in Heaven". The Journal of Jewish thought & philosophy
Academic article
Levy, Gabriel. (2010) Review Essay: “Contemporary Theories of Religion, A Critical Companion”. Numen
Academic literature review

2006

Levy, Gabriel. (2006) "Biblical Prophecy in Recent American Theological Politics". Postscripts: The Journal of Sacred Texts and Contemporary Worlds
Academic article