The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.
Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.
We also provide custom rankings of people by discipline as well as interviews with influential academics who are currently active.
To use this tool, select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) relevant to your research, and specify influential academics by history, world, or US. Even results that are counterintuitive are often enlightening (our algorithm always picks up a signal).
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List of the most influential people in Religious Studies,
#551
Diogenes Allen
#31495
Overall Influence
1932 - 2013 (81 years)
Diogenes Allen was an American philosopher and theologian who served as the Stuart Professor of Philosophy at Princeton Theological Seminary. He was an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church, which he served from 1958. He died in Newtown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
Go to Profile#552
David F. Ford
#17999
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (76 years)
David Frank Ford is an Anglican public theologian. He was the Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge, beginning in 1991. He is now an Emeritus Regius Professor of Divinity. His research interests include political theology, ecumenical theology, Christian theologians and theologies, theology and poetry, the shaping of universities and of the field of theology and religious studies within universities, hermeneutics, and interfaith theology and relations. He is the founding director of the Cambridge Inter-Faith Programme and a co-founder of the Society for Scriptural Reason...
Go to Profile#553
Harry M. Kuitert
#44259
Overall Influence
1924 - 2017 (93 years)
Harminus Martinus "Harry" Kuitert was a theologian of the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands . Harry Kuitert was a rector at Scharendijk and a student pastor at Amsterdam before he became a professor of theology. In Zeeland, he witnessed the great North Sea flood of 1953 which inundated large parts of this Dutch province.
Go to Profile#554
Jörg Rüpke
#21300
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (62 years)
Jörg Rüpke is a German scholar of comparative religion and classical philology, recipient of the Gay-Lussac Humboldt Prize in 2008, and of the Advanced Grant of the European Research Council in 2011. In January 2012, Rüpke was appointed by German Federal President Christian Wulff to the German Council of Science and Humanities.
Go to Profile#555
Clinton Bennett
#26753
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (69 years)
Clinton Bennett is a British-American scholar of Religious studies and participant in interfaith dialogue, specializing in Islamic studies and the relations between Islam and other religions. He is also a published author.
Go to Profile#556
Margot Käßmann
#16924
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
Margot Käßmann is a Lutheran theologian, who was Landesbischöfin of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Hanover in Germany. On 28 October 2009, she was also elected to lead the Protestant Church in Germany, a federation of Protestant church bodies in Germany. She stepped down from both offices on 24 February 2010 following a drink-driving incident. After serving as a "Reformation Ambassador" for the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, she retired in 2018.
Go to Profile#557
Allen Wikgren
#32340
Overall Influence
1906 - 1998 (92 years)
Allen Paul Wikgren was an American New Testament scholar and professor at the University of Chicago. His work centered on the text of the New Testament and New Testament manuscripts, but also included Hellenistic and biblical Greek, the deuterocanonical books , early Jewish literature , and work on the Revised Standard Version English translation of the Bible.
Go to Profile#558
Steve Brown
#36068
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (84 years)
Steve Brown is an American Christian author, a radio broadcaster, and a former seminary professor at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida. He describes himself as a Calvinist, and is ordained in the Presbyterian Church in America.
Go to Profile#559
Stephen H. Webb
#27419
Overall Influence
1961 - 2016 (55 years)
Stephen H. Webb was a theologian and philosopher of religion. Webb graduated from Wabash College in 1983, earned his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago, and taught at Wabash College as Professor of Religion and Philosophy from 1988 to 2012. Born in 1961 and reared in Indianapolis, Indiana, he grew up at Englewood Christian Church, an evangelical church in the Restoration Movement. He recounts his experiences there in Taking Religion to School and in an essay, "Recalling: A Theologian Remembers His Church," in Falling Toward Grace: Images of Religion and Culture from the Heartland, ed. Kent Calder and Susan Neville .
Go to Profile#560
Roland E. Murphy
#32604
Overall Influence
1917 - 2002 (85 years)
Roland Edmund Murphy was an American Catholic priest of the Carmelite order, a biblical scholar and a specialist in the study of the Old Testament. He was the George Washington Ivey Professor of Biblical Studies at Duke University.
Go to Profile#561
Jay Smith
#35495
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Jay Smith is an American Christian evangelist. Since 1983, he has been a full-time missionary with the Brethren in Christ Church with a focus on apologetics and polemics among the Muslims of London.
Go to Profile#562
Birgit Meyer
#35809
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (64 years)
Birgit Meyer is a German professor of religious studies at Utrecht University. Career Meyer was born on 21 March 1960 in Emden, Germany. She studied comparative religion, pedagogy, and cultural anthropology at the University of Bremen and the University of Amsterdam. She earned her PhD at the latter university in 1995 under doctoral advisors J. Fabian and H.U.E. Thoden van Velzen, with a thesis titled: Translating the Devil. An African Appropriation of Pietist Protestantism. The Case of the Peki Ewe, 1847–1992. She was appointed as professor of religious studies at Utrecht University in 2011....
Go to Profile#563
Russell H. Dilday
#34442
Overall Influence
1930 - 2023 (93 years)
Russell Hooper Dilday was an American pastor, educator, seminary president, and chancellor of the B.H. Carroll Theological Institute. He was best known for his tenure as president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary until his abrupt dismissal in 1994 during the Southern Baptist Convention conservative resurgence.
Go to Profile#564
Janet Gyatso
#35588
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (75 years)
Janet Gyatso is a Religious Studies scholar currently employed as the Hershey Professor of Buddhist Studies and the Associate Dean for Faculty and Academic Affairs at Harvard Divinity School. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Gyatso's research interests are in Buddhism and its relationship to Tibetan and South Asian civilizations.
Go to Profile#565
Juan José Tamayo
#59076
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Juan José Tamayo is a Spanish theologian and professor of theology at the Charles III University of Madrid. He specializes in Catholic hierarchy but has broadened into Islamic studies. He has contributed to controversies about Opus Dei, and has written over 50 books. He is president of the Asociación de Teólogos Juan XXIII.
Go to Profile#566
Jonathan Wells
#13284
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (82 years)
John Corrigan "Jonathan" Wells is an American author, theologian, and advocate of the pseudoscientific argument of intelligent design. Wells joined the Unification Church in 1974, and subsequently wrote that the teachings of its founder Sun Myung Moon, his own studies at the Unification Theological Seminary and his prayers convinced him to devote his life to "destroying Darwinism." The term Darwinism is often used by intelligent design proponents and other creationists to refer to the scientific consensus on evolution. He gained a PhD in religious studies at Yale University in 1986, then became Director of the Unification Church's inter-religious outreach organization in New York City.
Go to Profile#567
Pierbattista Pizzaballa
#23011
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (59 years)
Pierbattista Pizzaballa is an Italian prelate of the Catholic Church who has been the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem since 6 November 2020. A Franciscan friar, he served as Custos of the Holy Land from 2004 to 2016, Apostolic Administrator of the Latin Patriarchate from 2016 to 2020, and was made a cardinal by Pope Francis on 30 September 2023.
Go to Profile#568
D. Michael Quinn
#15263
Overall Influence
1944 - 2021 (77 years)
Dennis Michael Quinn was an American historian who focused on the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints . He was a professor at Brigham Young University from 1976 until he resigned in 1988. At the time, his work concerned church involvement with plural marriage after the 1890 Manifesto, when new polygamous marriages were officially prohibited. He was excommunicated from the church as one of the September Six and afterwards was openly gay. Quinn nevertheless identified as a Latter-day Saint and continued to believe in many LDS teachings, though he did not actively practic...
Go to Profile#569
Michael Fishbane
#34252
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (81 years)
Michael A. Fishbane is an American scholar of Judaism and rabbinic literature. Formerly at Brandeis University, he is currently Professor Emeritus of Jewish Studies at the Divinity School, University of Chicago.
Go to Profile#570
Ulrich Duchrow
#44178
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (89 years)
Ulrich Duchrow is a professor of systematic theology at the University of Heidelberg specialising in ecumenical theology and theology-economy issues. He was the co-founder and co-moderator of Kairos Europa, a "European decentralised network of justice, peace and creation initiatives working in collaboration with churches, social movements, trade unions and non-governmental organisations, both in and outside Europe, for a more just and tolerant society."
Go to Profile#571
J. Deotis Roberts
#31274
Overall Influence
1927 - 2022 (95 years)
James Deotis Roberts was an American theologian, and a pioneering figure in the black theology movement. Biography Born in Spindale, North Carolina, Roberts earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Johnson C. Smith University, a Bachelor of Divinity degree from Shaw University, and a Master of Sacred Theology degree from Hartford Seminary. In 1957, he became the first African American to earn a PhD from New College, University of Edinburgh, in philosophical theology. Later in 1994, he was awarded an honorary DLitt, also from the University of Edinburgh.
Go to Profile#572
Harold W. Attridge
#31806
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Harold William Attridge is an American New Testament scholar and historian of Christianity known for his work in New Testament exegesis, especially the Epistle to the Hebrews, the study of Hellenistic Judaism, and the history of early Christianity. He is a Sterling Professor of Divinity at Yale University, where he served as Dean of the Divinity School from 2002 to 2012, the first Roman Catholic to head that historically Protestant school.
Go to Profile#573
Irinej Bulović
#52948
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Irinej Bulović is a Serbian Orthodox cleric and the current Bishop of Bačka. He serves as а professor of the New Testament exegesis and Greek language on the Faculty of Theology of the University of Belgrade.
Go to Profile#574
Carol Harris-Shapiro
#26264
Overall Influence
Carol Harris-Shapiro is a lecturer at Temple University in the Intellectual Heritage Department. She has written a controversial book on Messianic Judaism, a belief system considered by most Christians and Jews to be a form of Christianity, adhered to by groups that seek to combine Christianity and Judaism.
Go to Profile#575
Robert E. Webber
#43983
Overall Influence
1933 - 2007 (74 years)
Robert Eugene Webber was an American theologian known for his work on worship and the early church. He played a key role in the Convergence Movement, a movement among evangelical and charismatic churches in the United States to blend charismatic worship with liturgies from the Book of Common Prayer and other liturgical sources.
Go to Profile#576
Frank Stagg
#31539
Overall Influence
1911 - 2001 (90 years)
Frank Stagg was a Southern Baptist theologian, seminary professor, author, and pastor over a 50-year ministry career. He taught New Testament interpretation and Greek at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary from 1945 until 1964 and at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky from 1964 until 1978. His publications, recognitions and honors earned him distinction as one of the eminent theologians of the past century. Other eminent theologians have honored him as a "Teaching Prophet."
Go to Profile#577
John Christopher Thomas
#46462
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (69 years)
John Christopher Thomas is a theologian within the Pentecostal movement and the Clarence J. Abbott Professor of Biblical Studies at the Pentecostal Theological Seminary. Thomas received the B.A. degree from Lee College in 1976, his M.A. from the Church of God School of Theology in 1977, the M.Div. from Ashland Theological Seminary in 1978, a Th.M. from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1979 and a Ph.D. from the University of Sheffield in 1990. Thomas has been a member of the full-time faculty of the Pentecostal Theological Seminary since 1982. Professor Thomas has been honored for his work i...
Go to Profile#578
Charles Mopsik
#43913
Overall Influence
1956 - 2003 (47 years)
Charles Mopsik was a French thinker, researcher and writer who renewed the study of the Kabbalah and of Jewish mysticism. Biography He was one of the important figures in the revival of Jewish studies in France at the end of the 1970s, a revival characterized by its philosophical consequences. In 1979, he founded the book collection "Les dix paroles" published by Editions Verdier, with Maimonides's Guide des égarés as the first emblematic volume, followed by a translation from the Aramaic of the Book of Genesis in the Zohar.
Go to Profile#579
Rachel Adler
#17595
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (81 years)
Rachel Adler is Professor Emerita of Modern Jewish Thought and Judaism and Gender at Hebrew Union College, at the Los Angeles campus. Adler was one of the first theologians to integrate feminist perspectives and concerns into Jewish texts and the renewal of Jewish law and ethics. Her approach to God is Levinasian and her approach to gender is constructivist.
Go to Profile#580
Saleh Al Maghamsi
#28957
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (61 years)
Saleh bin Awad al Maghamsi is a sunni Islamic scholar from Saudi Arabia. He was the Imam of the Quba Mosque of Medina. He was a student of Ibn Baaz among other Islamic scholars. Early life and education Bin Awad al Maghamsi was born in 1963 in Al Madinah Region of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. He grew up and was educated in the Medina region. He attended King Abdul Aziz University where he graduated in Arabic language and Islamic studies. He then studied under a number of Islamic scholars such as Mohammed Attia Salem, Abu Bakr Aljazairi, Saleh Mohammed Ibn Othaymeen, and Ibn Baaz.
Go to Profile#581
Pierre DuMaine
#26655
Overall Influence
1931 - 2019 (88 years)
Roland Pierre DuMaine was an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as the first bishop of the Diocese of San José in California from 1981 to 1999. He also served as an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of San Francisco in California from 1978 to 1981.
Go to Profile#582
Robert Beckford
#26761
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (59 years)
Robert Beckford is a British academic theologian and currently Professor of Climate and Social Justice at the University of Winchester, and has associate roles as a Professor of Black Theology at The Queen's Foundation, and a Professor of Theology at Vu University, Amsterdam. His documentaries for both the BBC and Channel 4 have caused debate among the religious community, instigated policy change and won national and international awards.
Go to Profile#583
Friedrich Schorlemmer
#12979
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
Friedrich Schorlemmer is a German Protestant theologian. He was a prominent member of the civil rights movement in the German Democratic Republic and has continued to take part in politics after German reunification in 1990.
Go to Profile#584
Eugene Borowitz
#20316
Overall Influence
1924 - 2016 (92 years)
Eugene B. Borowitz was an American leader and philosopher in Reform Judaism, known largely for his work on Jewish theology and Jewish ethics. He also edited a Jewish journal, Sh'ma, and taught at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.
Go to Profile#585
James Kugel
#25845
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (79 years)
James L. Kugel is professor emeritus in the Bible department at Bar Ilan University in Israel and the Harry M. Starr Professor Emeritus of Classical and Modern Hebrew Literature at Harvard University.
Go to Profile#586
George Erik Rupp
#20905
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (82 years)
George Erik Rupp is an American educator and theologian, who served successively as president of Rice University, Columbia University, and the International Rescue Committee. Biography Rupp was born in Summit, New Jersey, the son of German immigrant parents, and was raised in Springfield Township, Union County, New Jersey. He studied in Germany before graduating from Princeton University with an A.B. in English in 1964 after completing a senior thesis titled "A Theatre of Ideas: Studies in Mid-Twentieth Century German and English Drama." He then received a Bachelor of Divinity degree from Yale Divinity School and, after studying for a year in Sri Lanka, a Ph.D.
Go to Profile#587
Vincent O'Keefe
#24089
Overall Influence
1920 - 2012 (92 years)
Father Vincent O'Keefe S.J. was the Vicar General of the Society of Jesus and a President of Fordham University. Biography In 1981 the order's superior general, Pedro Arrupe, suffered a stroke. O'Keefe was appointed Vicar General to guide the Jesuits as they began the process of selecting a new General. The pope, in a highly unusual and historic decision, intervened and appointed instead Jesuit Father Paolo Dezza as a special pontifical delegate to serve as the Jesuits' interim leader.
Go to Profile#588
Murray J. Harris
#34079
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (85 years)
Murray J. Harris is professor emeritus of New Testament exegesis and theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois. He was for a time warden of Tyndale House at Cambridge University. He gained his PhD from the University of Manchester, studying under F. F. Bruce.
Go to Profile#589
Jeffery D. Long
#26446
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (55 years)
Jeffery D. Long is a religious studies scholar who works on the religions and philosophies of India, particularly Hinduism and Jainism. He is a professor of religion and Asian studies at Elizabethtown College.
Go to Profile#590
Yochanan Muffs
#34936
Overall Influence
1932 - 2009 (77 years)
Yochanan Muffs was an American professor of the Bible and religion at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City. Biography Muffs grew up in a Conservative Jewish home in Flushing, Queens. His parents were Barney and Mary Muffs. Muffs had one sister, Civia, an artist. He did his undergraduate degree in Humanities at Queens College and studied for the rabbinate at the Jewish Theological Seminary, where he began teaching in 1954. He pursued his Ph.D. in Near Eastern studies at the University of Pennsylvania.
Go to Profile#591
Moojan Momen
#16210
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Moojan Momen is a retired physician and historian specializing in Baháʼí studies who has published numerous books and articles about the Baháʼí Faith and Islam, especially Shia Islam, including for Encyclopædia Iranica the British Library, and is a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland.
Go to Profile#592
Radhika Ramana Dasa
#18477
Overall Influence
#593
Elizabeth Moberly
#14314
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Elizabeth Moberly is a British research psychologist and theologian. Moberly is the author of Homosexuality: A New Christian Ethic, in which she suggests several possible causes of male homosexuality and a therapeutic cure.
Go to Profile#594
Benjamin Blech
#15595
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (91 years)
Benjamin Blech is an American Orthodox rabbi. He is a Professor of Talmud at Yeshiva University where he has taught since 1966, and was the rabbi of Young Israel of Oceanside for 37 years. In addition to his work in the rabbinate, Blech has written many books on Judaism and the Jewish people and speaks on Jewish topics to communities around the world.
Go to Profile#595
Herbert Haag
#27523
Overall Influence
1915 - 2001 (86 years)
Herbert Haag was a Swiss Roman Catholic theologian and biblical scholar of German origin. Haag was born in Singen am Hohentwiel. After studying theology in Paris for the diocese of Basel in 1940, he was ordained a priest and worked for several years as a pastor in Lucerne. In 1942, Haag attained his PhD at the University of Fribourg. From 1948 to 1960, he taught Old Testament studies at the Theological Faculty of Lucerne, and from 1960 to 1980 he held the chair of Old Testament at the Catholic Theological Faculty at the University of Tübingen. Haag in particular as biblical scholars and exegete known, among other things, he published a well-known Bible dictionary.
Go to Profile#596
Robert Barron
#25073
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (65 years)
Robert Emmet Barron is an American prelate of the Catholic Church who has served as bishop of the Diocese of Winona–Rochester since 2022. He is the founder of the Catholic ministerial organization Word on Fire, and was the host of Catholicism, a documentary TV series about Catholicism that aired on PBS. He served as rector at Mundelein Seminary from 2012 to 2015 and as auxiliary bishop for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles from 2015 to 2022.
Go to Profile#597
Desmond Tutu
#2750
Overall Influence
1931 - 2021 (90 years)
Desmond Mpilo Tutu was a South African Anglican bishop and theologian, known for his work as an anti-apartheid and human rights activist. He was Bishop of Johannesburg from 1985 to 1986 and then Archbishop of Cape Town from 1986 to 1996, in both cases being the first black African to hold the position. Theologically, he sought to fuse ideas from black theology with African theology.
Go to Profile#598
James V. Schall
#7259
Overall Influence
1928 - 2019 (91 years)
James Vincent Schall was an American Jesuit Roman Catholic priest, teacher, writer, and philosopher. He was Professor of Political Philosophy in the Department of Government at Georgetown University. He retired from teaching in December 2012, giving his final lecture on December 7, 2012, at Georgetown; it was entitled "The Final Gladness," and was sponsored by the Tocqueville Forum. has been described as "a reflection on different aspects of lifelong learning" by the National Catholic Register.
Go to Profile#599
O. Palmer Robertson
#33005
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (87 years)
Owen Palmer Robertson is an American Christian theologian and biblical scholar. He taught at Reformed Theological Seminary, Westminster Theological Seminary, Covenant Theological Seminary, Knox Theological Seminary as well as at the African Bible Colleges of Malawi and Uganda. He also served as principal of the latter institution. Robertson was the first elected male SGA president of Belhaven College in 1957.
Go to Profile#600
Tim Challies
#50666
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (48 years)
Tim Challies is a Canadian Reformed Baptist theologian, pastor, blogger, and author. Career In 2003, Challies started a blog on theology, book reviews, and social commentary. He has published books on theology, among other topics, such as how Christians should approach common issues like technology and pornography.
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