Dag Øistein Endsjø

Professor - Religious Studies

Norwegian version of this page

Email d.o.endsjo@ikos.uio.no

Phone +47 22854918

Mobile phone +47 99043311

Room 343 PAM

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Visiting address P.A. Munchs hus

Postal address Postboks 1010 Blindern 0315 OSLO

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Endsjø er most know for his research on sex & religion and on how Greek beliefs in physical immortality and resurrection influenced early Christianity. He also works with various other fields, such as religion and popular culture, religion and human rights, religion and politics, religious and place, religion and gender, religious change, Greek religion, Christianity, and the history of the immortality in Western beliefs.

He is among Norway’s most translated academics with publications in twelve languages, as well as being one of the country's most prolific scholars in the public sphere with hundreds of more popular articles.

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Professor in the Study of Religion at the University of Oslo 2016-
Professor in the Study of Religion at the University of Bergen 2006-2017
Visiting scholar at Duke University 1999, UTS Columbia University 2003, San Francisco University 2006
Postdoctoral Fellow in the History of Ideas at the University of Oslo 2005-2006
Postdoctoral Fellow in the History of Ideas at the University of Oslo 2003-2004
Associate Professor in the Study of Religion at NTNU, Norwegian University of Science and Technology 2003
Dr.art. in the History of Religion at the University of Oslo 2003

Tags: History of Religions, Christianity, Religion and gender, History of sexuality, Religion and politics, Human rights, Religion and popular culture, Antiquity, Popular Religion, Rituals, Death and immortality

“The other way around? How freedom of religion may protect LGBT rights”. The International Journal of Human Rights 2020.
Udødelighetens historie. Fra Jesus’ oppstandelse til zombier, antioksidanter og barn i ilden (History of immortality. From the resurrection of Jesus to zombies, antioxidants and children in the fire). Oslo: Cappelen Damm 2016. ISBN 9788202489113.
Sex and religion. Teaching and taboos in the history of world faiths. London: Reaktion Books 2011. ISBN 9781861898159. (also published in Arabic, Bulgarian, Chinese, Italian, Norwegian, Macedonian, Polish, Portuguese, Serbian, Swedish, and Ukrainian).
Det folk vil ha. Religion og populærkultur (What people want. Religion and popular culture). Written together with Liv Ingeborg Lied). Oslo: Universitetsforlaget 2011. ISBN 9788215017488.
Greek resurrection beliefs and the success of Christianity. New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2009. ISBN 978-0-230-62256-2.
Primordial landscapes, incorruptible bodies. Desert asceticism and the Christian appropriation of Greek ideas on geography, bodies, and immortality. New York: Peter Lang 2008. ISBN 978-1-4331-0181-6.
Lei av kjønn? Nær-kjønn-opplevelser og andre beretninger fra virkeligheten (edited together with Helge Svare). Oslo: Cappelen Akademisk Forlag 2001.
«‹The truth is out there›. Primordial lore and ignorance in the wilderness». Laura Feldt (ed.) Wilderness in mythology and religion. Approaching religious spatialities, cosmologies, and ideas of wild nature. Boston & Berlin: Walter de Gruyter 2012: 113-29.
«Immortal bodies, Before Christ. Bodily continuity in ancient Greece and 1 Corinthians». Journal for the Study of the New Testament 30, 2008: 417-36.
«The queer periphery. Sexual deviancy and the cultural understanding of space». Journal of Homosexuality, vol. 54, 2008: 9-20.
«Sex, nattverd og menneskerettigheter. Nye utfordringer for Den katolske kirke». Tomas Hägg red.) Kjetterne og kirken. Fra antikken til i dag. Oslo: Scandinavian Academic Press 2008: 209-22. Also published in German, Kirche und Ketzer. Wege und Abwege des Christentums. Böhlau Verlag 2010.
«Funksjonshemmede og rangeringssamfunnet. Hva sier menneskerettighetene om å rangere diskrimineringsvernet etter diskrimineringsgrunnlag?». Toril Heglum og Ann Kristin Krokan (ed.) Med vitende og vilje. Om funksjonshemming, diskriminering og krenkelse. Oslo: Kommuneforlaget 2006: 70-82.
«Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights and the religious relativism of human rights». Human Rights Review, 6:2, 2005: 102-10.
«To control death. Sacrifice and space in classical Greece». Religion, vol. 33, 2003: 323-340.
«To lock up Eleusis. A question of liminal space». Numen, vol. 47, 2000: 351-86.
«Placing the unplaceable. The making of Apollonius’s Argonautic geography». Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies. Vol 38. 1997: 373-85.

Endsjø, Dag Øistein (2020). The other way around? How freedom of religion may protect LGBT rights. International Journal of Human Rights. ISSN 1364-2987. 24(10), s 1681- 1700 . doi: doi.org/10.1080/13642987.2020.1763961 Full text in Research Archive. Show summary
While LGBT people are generally protected by a number of basic human rights, such as the right to privacy, freedom of expression and association, and the right not to be discriminated against, LGBT rights are repeatedly presented as contrary to freedom of religion. However, taking into account how religion has always been both condemning and embracing various forms of same-sex sexuality and transgenderism, and how an increasing number of religious people and whole denominations consider LGBT equality in accordance with their beliefs, one finds that freedom of religion relates just as much to LGBT people who live according to their own religious pro-LGBT convictions and to other people with pro-LGBT beliefs, as to those with anti-LGBT beliefs. As freedom of religion also protects the right not to believe and not to be forced to live according to other people’s religious beliefs, the general claim that LGBT rights must be limited because of the religious freedom of those with anti-LGBT beliefs also represents a direct attack on the negative freedom of religion of LGBT people. The awareness of this may in various ways affect both the legal and more general discussion on both LGBT rights and freedom of religion.
Endsjø, Dag Øistein (2019). Ulv, miljøparagrafen i Norges grunnlov og vernet av truede dyrearter. Nordisk miljörättslig tidskrift. ISSN 2000-4273. 11(1), s 29- 45 Full text in Research Archive. Show summary
There is a dearth of judicial deliberation on article § 112 of the Constitution of Norway, the so-called environmental paragraph. It is consequently a need to examine to what extent this article protects endangered species on the basis of its more general provision of the right of “everyone”, including future generations, to a natural environment where diversity is maintained. As the legislative history is always pertinent for the understanding of Norwegian legislation, it is of particular importance to examine how the environmental paragraph was directly based on a number of specific recommendations. Most prominently in the formal parliamentary deliberations was the emphasis on the 1987 World Commission on Environment and Development (Brundtland Commission) and how this held that “states have a responsibility towards their own citizens and other states … to maintain ecosystems and … biological diversity by ensuring the survival and promoting the conservation in their natural habitats of all species of flora and fauna.” This legislative history must thus be taken into consideration for the proper judicial interpretation of the article’s relevance for the protection of endangered animals both in general and in connection with the preservation of species in their original ecosystems. The legislative history also has relevant bearings in connection with the state’s responsibility towards future generations and other states, the understanding of other legislation concerning the environment, and the official practice of limited geographical “wolf zones” and maximum number of each of the species of predators. Moreover, the way the rights set forth in this article are explicitly considered human rights according to its legislative history, wording and placement in the Constitution, raises the question to what degree any limitation of these rights must be in accordance with how human rights generally only may be limited when there is an objective and reasonable justification and a reasonable relationship of proportionality between the means employed and the aim sought to be realized.
Endsjø, Dag Øistein (2018). Oppstandelse. Store Norske Leksikon (Nettutgaven).
Endsjø, Dag Øistein (2018). Resurrection of the Dead in Early Judaism, 200 BCE–CE 200, by C. D. Elledge, New York, Oxford University Press, 2017. Book Review.. Religion. ISSN 0048-721X. 48(3), s 524- 526 . doi: 10.1080/0048721X.2018.1450476
Endsjø, Dag Øistein (2018). Tidlig kristendom. Store Norske Leksikon (Nettutgaven).

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Endsjø, Dag Øistein (2020). الجنس والدين التعاليم والمحظورات في تاريخ الأديان. Sefsafa Publishing House. ISBN 9789778211382. 211 s.
Hafstad, Daisy Sælen; Endsjø, Dag Øistein & Hill, Thomas (red.) (2020). Parykker, stiletter og frigjøring. Historien om norsk dragshow. Kolofon Forlag AS. ISBN 9788230020456. 207 s.
Endsjø, Dag Øistein (2018). Nemirstības vēsture. Un Citi. ISBN 9789934861130. 272 s.

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