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.
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List of the most influential people in Religious Studies,
#6001
John Hunt
1827 - 1907 (80 years)
John Hunt, D.D. was a Scottish cleric, theologian and historian. He was known for his liberal views, and his work Religious Thought in England. Life He was born in the Bridgend parish of Kinnoull, Perth, Scotland, and matriculated at University of St Andrews in 1847. He was ordained deacon in the Church of England in 1855, and priest 1857.
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Alexander Hill
1785 - 1867 (82 years)
Alexander Hill was a Scottish minister of the Church of Scotland who served as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1845. He was professor of divinity at the University of Glasgow.
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Abu al-Hassan al-Amiri
913 - 992 (79 years)
Abu al-Hassan Muhammad ibn Yusuf al-Amiri was a Muslim theologian and philosopher who attempted to reconcile philosophy with religion, and Sufism with conventional Islam. While al-'Amiri believed the revealed truths of Islam were superior to the logical conclusions of philosophy, he argued that the two did not contradict each other. Al-'Amiri consistently sought to find areas of agreement and synthesis between disparate Islamic sects. However, he believed Islam to be morally superior to other religions, specifically Zoroastrianism and Manicheism.
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Kaspar Ulenberg
1549 - 1617 (68 years)
Kaspar Ulenberg was a Catholic convert, theological writer and translator of the Bible. He was born at Lippstadt on the Lippe, Westphalia, the son of Lutheran parents, and was intended for the Lutheran ministry. He received his grammar-school education in Lippstadt, Soest, and Brunswick, and from 1569 studied theology at Wittenberg. While studying Luther's writings there his first doubts as to the truth of the Lutheran doctrines were awakened, and were then increased by hearing the disputes between the Protestant theologians and by the appearance of Calvinism in Saxony. After completing his ...
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Matthias Vehe
1545 - 1590 (45 years)
Matthias Vehe known as Glirius was a German Protestant religious radical, who converted to a form of Judaism and anti-trinitarianism, rejecting the New Testament as revelation. The identity of Vehe and the writer Glirius, who published Mattanjah in Cologne, was established by G. E. Lessing. The history of the group including Vehe has been reconsidered by recent scholarship.
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David Nelson Beach
1848 - 1926 (78 years)
David Nelson Beach was an American theologian, born at South Orange, N. J., and a brother of Harlan Page Beach. David Beach graduated from Yale College in 1872 and from the Yale Divinity School in 1876. In the same year he was ordained a Congregational minister and became pastor at Westerly, R. I. He subsequently served in pastorates at Wakefield, Mass., Cambridge, Mass., Minneapolis, and Denver. From 1903–1921, he was President and Professor of Sacred Rhetoric at Bangor Theological Seminary in Bangor, Maine. He took a prominent part in civic and social movements and during his residence at Cambridge was prominent in ridding that city of saloonss.
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Josep Climent i Avinent
1706 - 1781 (75 years)
Josep Climent i Avinent was a Spanish bishop of Barcelona. Life Born at Castellón de la Plana, Valencia, he studied and afterwards professed theology at the University of Valencia, worked for several years as parish priest, and was consecrated Bishop of Barcelona in 1766; he resigned his see in 1775.
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Jean Hessels
1522 - 1566 (44 years)
Jan Hessels, Jean Leonardi Hasselius or Jean Hessels was a Flemish theologian and controversialist at the University of Louvain. He was a defender of Baianism. Life Hessels was born at Mechlin in 1522, and obtained his doctorate in theology from Louvain. He had been teaching for eight years in Park Abbey, the Premonstratensian house near Louvain, when in 1560, he was appointed professor of theology at the university. Like Michael Baius, who was his senior colleague, Hessels preferred drawing his theology from the Church Fathers, especially from Augustine of Hippo, rather than from the Schoolmen.
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Robert Livingston Rudolph
1865 - 1930 (65 years)
Robert Livingston Rudolph was an American bishop of the Reformed Episcopal Church. He was the first bishop to be raised with the church. Rudolph also served as Professor of Dogmatic Theology and Christian Ethics at the Theological Seminary of the Reformed Episcopal Church in Philadelphia for twenty-seven years before his death. Together Rudolph and his son, Robert Knight Rudolph, trained men for the gospel ministry at this institution for a total of seventy-four years. Rudolph was widely recognized as an outstanding preacher, teacher, scholar and bishop.
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John Llewelyn Davies
1826 - 1916 (90 years)
John Llewelyn Davies was an English preacher and theologian, an outspoken foe of poverty and inequality, and was active in Christian socialist groups. He was an original member of the Alpine Club and the first ascendant of the Dom. His daughter was suffragist Margaret Llewelyn Davies. His son Arthur Llewelyn Davies was the father of the boys who were the inspiration for the stories of Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie. His sister Emily Davies was one of the founders of Girton College.
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J. W. B. Barns
1912 - 1974 (62 years)
John Wintour Baldwin Barns was a British Egyptologist, papyrologist, Anglican priest, and academic. From 1965 to 1974, he was Professor of Egyptology at the University of Oxford. Early life and education Barns was born on 12 May 1912 in Bristol, England. Having won a scholarship, he was educated at Fairfield School, then a private school on Bristol. Though he had an interest in Egyptology from an early age, since the discover of Tutankhamun's tomb in 1922, his father encouraged him to study classics. He taught himself Ancient Greek because it was not a subject available at his school.
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Michele Bonelli
1541 - 1598 (57 years)
Carlo Michele Bonelli, Cardinal Alessandrino was an Italian senior papal diplomat with a distinguished career that spanned two decades from 1571. Biography Born in Bosco Marengo, he was the son of Marco Bonelli, inscribed as a noble of Alessandria in Piedmont, 1566, and of Dominina de' Gibertis, niece of Pope Pius V. He was the great-uncle of Cardinal Carlo Bonelli .
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Antoine-Noé de Polier de Bottens
1713 - 1783 (70 years)
Antoine-Noé Polier de Bottens was an 18th-century Swiss Protestant theologian. Biography Antoine-Noé Polier de Bottens descended from a noble family from the French Rouergue that they left for Switzerland in the 16th century to escape persecution as Huguenots and not have to abjure their Protestant faith. The first known member of this family was Jean Polier, who died in 1602 after being Secretary of the Embassy of France in Geneva, a family which included scholars, professors and officers who served with distinction in the armies of most major powers.
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Humphrey Gower
1638 - 1711 (73 years)
Humphrey Gower was an English clergyman and academic, Master of Jesus College, Cambridge, and then St. John's College, Cambridge, and Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity. Life He was the son of Stanley Gower, successively rector of Brampton Bryan, Herefordshire, and of Holy Trinity, Dorchester, and a member of the Westminster Assembly in 1643. Humphrey Gower was born at Brampton Bryan in 1638 and educated at St Paul's School and at Dorchester, and St. John's College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1658, was elected to a fellowship on 23 March 1659, and proceeded M.A. in 1662. Having ...
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John M. Allegro
1923 - 1988 (65 years)
John Marco Allegro was an English archaeologist and Dead Sea Scrolls scholar. He was a populariser of the Dead Sea Scrolls through his books and radio broadcasts. He was the editor of some of the most famous and controversial scrolls published, the pesharim. A number of Allegro's later books, including The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross, brought him both popular fame and notoriety, and also complicated his career.
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Richard Holdsworth
1590 - 1649 (59 years)
Richard Holdsworth was an English academic theologian, and Master of Emmanuel College, Cambridge from 1637 to 1643. Although Emmanuel was a Puritan stronghold, Holdsworth, who in religion agreed, in the political sphere resisted Parliamentary interference, and showed Royalist sympathies.
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Julian Morgenstern
1881 - 1976 (95 years)
Julian Morgenstern was an American rabbi, Bible scholar, and president of Hebrew Union College. Life Morgenstern was born on March 18, 1881, in St. Francisville, Illinois, the son of Samuel Morgenstern and Hannah Ochs. His parents were German immigrants. He moved to with his family to Vincennes, Indiana, when he was two. They stayed there for four years, and after a year in Garden City, Kansas, they settled in Cincinnati, Ohio.
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Norman Perrin
1920 - 1976 (56 years)
Norman Perrin was an English-born, American biblical scholar at the University of Chicago. Perrin specialized in the study of the New Testament, and was internationally known for his work on the teaching of Jesus, as well as on the Redaction Criticism of the New Testament.
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Elmer George Homrighausen
1900 - 1982 (82 years)
Elmer George Homrighausen was an American theologian. Biography Homrighausen was born in Wheatland, Iowa, and earned an A.B. from Lakeland College , a B.Th. from Princeton Theological Seminary, an M.A. from Butler University, and a Th.M. from the University of Dubuque.
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Nels F. S. Ferré
1908 - 1971 (63 years)
Nels Fredrick Solomon Ferré was a Christian theologian born in Luleå, Sweden on June 8, 1908. Life Nels F.S Ferré, born Nils Ferré, was born in Sweden in 1908 to Maria Wickman Ferré and Frans August Ferré and emigrated to The United States alone at age 13. Upon his arrival on Ellis Island, he was detained and later joined his brother in St. Paul Minnesota where he would work for a family farm. In 1931 he graduated with his undergrad from Boston University. In 1932, Ferré married Katharine Louise Pond. With his interest in philosophy and theology, Ferré would pursue a D.B. degree at Andover Newton, graduating with the class of 1934.
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Charles E. Raven
1885 - 1964 (79 years)
Charles Earle Raven was an English theologian and Anglican priest. He was Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge University and Master of Christ's College, Cambridge . His works have been influential in the history of science publishing on the positive effects that theology has had upon modern science.
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J. H. S. Burleigh
1894 - 1985 (91 years)
John Henderson Seaforth Burleigh was a Scottish minister and biblical scholar who served as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1960. He was Honorary President of the Scottish Church History Society. In authorship he is usually referred to as J. H. S. Burleigh.
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George Eldon Ladd
1911 - 1982 (71 years)
George Eldon Ladd was a Baptist minister and professor of New Testament exegesis and theology at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California, known in Christian eschatology for his promotion of inaugurated eschatology and "futuristic post-tribulationism."
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James Muilenburg
1896 - 1974 (78 years)
James Muilenburg was a pioneer in the field of rhetorical criticism of the Old Testament. Muilenburg was born in Orange City, Iowa, and studied at Hope College, the University of Nebraska, and Yale University. He taught at Mt. Holyoke College and the University of Maine before successive appointments as Billings Professor of Old Testament literature and Semitic Languages at the Pacific School of Religion , Davenport Professor of Hebrew and the Cognate Languages at Union Theological Seminary , and Gray Professor of Hebrew Exegesis and Old Testament at San Francisco Theological Seminary .
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