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,
#851
Paul D. Hanson
#34563
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (86 years)
Paul David Hanson was an American biblical scholar who taught for 40 years at Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Hanson spent his whole career at Harvard Divinity School, starting out in 1971 as an Assistant Professor of Old Testament. He was appointed the Florence Corliss Lamont Professor of Divinity and Bussey Professor of Divinity . Upon his retirement from the active faculty in 2009, he became the Florence Corliss Lamont Research Professor of Divinity.
Go to Profile#852
W. V. Grant
#36853
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (80 years)
Walter Vinson Grant, Jr., who goes by W. V. Grant , is a televangelist whose ministry has been based in the Greater Dallas area. Career Grant began his career in Cincinnati, Ohio, in the mid-1970s with the "Cathedral of Compassion" in the Over-the-Rhine area of Cincinnati before relocating to the suburbs of St Bernard until the early 1980s. The son of minister Walter Vinson Grant, Sr., in 1983 Grant took over Soul's Harbor Church and expanded its ministry, later renaming the church as "Eagles Nest Cathedral". In 1987, Grant purchased in the southwest section of Dallas and built the "Eagle's Nest Family Church", and continued pastoring the 5000-seat church until 1996.
Go to Profile#853
Aaron Gross
#38998
Overall Influence
Aaron S. Gross is an American historian of religions who focuses on modern Jewish ethics, the study of animals and religion, and food and religion. He serves as a professor of theology and religious studies at the University of San Diego. He has served as cochair of the American Academy of Religion's Animals and Religion group and as president of the Society of Jewish Ethics.
Go to Profile#854
Marian Gołębiewski
#59575
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (88 years)
Marian Gołębiewski is a former Polish archbishop of Wrocław, which he served from 2004 to 2013. From 1996 to 2004, he was Bishop of Koszalin-Kołobrzeg. Earlier life He was born in Trzebuchowie. In 1952–56 he was a student of Minor Seminary. Jan Dlugosz in Wloclawek, which completed an internal exam. He passed a state maturity exam extramurally at high School in 1956. Jan Matejko in Poznan.
Go to Profile#855
Steven Engler
#43659
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (63 years)
Steven Joseph Engler is a Canadian scholar of religion, Professor at Mount Royal University, Professor Colaborador in the Graduate Program in Ciêncas da Religião at the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo , and affiliate Professor in the Department of Religion at Concordia University.
Go to Profile#856
Paul R. House
#54623
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (67 years)
Paul R. House is an American Old Testament scholar, author, and seminary professor who served as 2012 president of the Evangelical Theological Society. He was professor of divinity at Beeson Divinity School, an interdenominational seminary in Birmingham, Alabama, until his retirement in May 2023.
Go to Profile#857
Jacob Milgrom
#23132
Overall Influence
1923 - 2010 (87 years)
Jacob Milgrom was a prominent American Jewish Bible scholar and Conservative rabbi. Milgrom's major contribution to biblical research was in the field of cult and worship. Although he accepted the documentary hypothesis, contrary to the classical bible critics, he traced a direct line of development from the Priestly Code , to the Holiness Code , to the cultic innovations of Ezekiel, to the cultic writings of the Dead Sea sect and finally to Jewish law of the Mishnah and Talmud. Best known for his comprehensive Torah commentaries and work on the Dead Sea Scrolls, he also published extensi...
Go to Profile#858
Nicholas Perrin
#42843
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (75 years)
Nicholas Perrin is an American academic administrator and religious scholar, currently serving as the 16th president of Trinity International University, a Christian university located in Deerfield, Illinois.
Go to Profile#859
Bernhard Anderson
#59635
Overall Influence
1916 - 2007 (91 years)
Bernhard Word Anderson was an American United Methodist pastor and Old Testament scholar. Information Born in Dover, Missouri, Anderson earned degrees from the College of the Pacific and Pacific School of Religion. In 1939, he was ordained to the ministry of the Methodist Church. He served Methodist churches in California, and later Congregational churches in both Connecticut and New York.
Go to Profile#860
Enkyo Pat O'Hara
#57912
Overall Influence
Enkyō Pat O'Hara is a Soto Zen priest and teacher in the Harada-Yasutani lineage of Zen Buddhism. Biography Growing up as a young white girl in Tijuana, Mexico while attending Catholic School in the United States, O’Hara was far too familiar with racism and prejudice. With one foot in each world, racial slurs and comments that were made to her left her feeling ostracized and insecure. However, it wasn’t until her high school years when she discovered and entered the Beat Generation and took to reading various literature including poems by Gary Snyder, who gave way to new ways of thought. It also in her high school years when she read R.H.
Go to Profile#861
John W. Welch
#28327
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (79 years)
John Woodland "Jack" Welch is a scholar of law and religion. Welch is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and currently teaches at the J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, where he is the Robert K. Thomas University Professor of Law. He is notable for his contributions to LDS scholarship, including his discovery of the ancient literary form chiasmus in the Book of Mormon.
Go to Profile#862
Ralph P. Martin
#49851
Overall Influence
1925 - 2013 (88 years)
Ralph Philip Martin was a British New Testament scholar. Martin was born in Anfield, Liverpool, England and was educated at the Liverpool Collegiate School, the University of Manchester and King's College London. He taught at the London Bible College, the University of Manchester, the University of Sheffield, Azusa Pacific University, and Fuller Theological Seminary.
Go to Profile#863
Robert Preus
#41212
Overall Influence
1924 - 1995 (71 years)
Robert David Preus was an American Lutheran pastor, professor, author, and seminary president. Biography Robert Preus was born to Minnesota Governor J.A.O. Preus and Idella Haugen Preus. His older brother is J.A.O. Preus II, former president of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod .
Go to Profile#864
Willard G. Oxtoby
#64607
Overall Influence
1933 - 2003 (70 years)
Willard Gurdon Oxtoby was an American theologian who studied and taught comparative religion, and was the founding director of the Graduate Centre for Religious Studies at the University of Toronto.
Go to Profile#865
Arthur Patrick
#38177
Overall Influence
1934 - 2013 (79 years)
Arthur Nelson Patrick was a Seventh-day Adventist theologian and historian. At the time of death, he was an honorary senior research fellow at Avondale College in New South Wales, Australia. He also worked in pastoral ministry, evangelism, religion teaching, academic administration, and hospital chaplaincy for the Seventh-day Adventist church.
Go to Profile#866
Karel van der Toorn
#40885
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (69 years)
Karel van der Toorn is a Dutch scholar of ancient religions. From 2006 to 2011 he was chairman of the Board at the University of Amsterdam, where he was a professor since 1998 and until he became the chairman of the Board.
Go to Profile#867
A. James Reimer
#51042
Overall Influence
1942 - 2010 (68 years)
Allen James Reimer was a Canadian Mennonite theologian who held a dual academic appointment as Professor of Religious Studies and Christian Theology at Conrad Grebel University College, a member college of the University of Waterloo, and at the Toronto School of Theology, a consortium of divinity schools federated with the University of Toronto. At the University of Waterloo's fall 2008 convocation, he was named Distinguished Professor Emeritus, an honor seldom bestowed on retired faculty.
Go to Profile#868
Enrico dal Covolo
#41256
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (75 years)
Enrico dal Covolo SDB is a Catholic bishop and Italian theologian, Assessor of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences from 15 January 2019. He previously served as the rector of the Pontifical Lateran University from his appointment on 30 June 2010 until 2 June 2018. In addition he was also the postulator of the cause of canonization of Pope John Paul I from 2003 until 2016.
Go to Profile#869
Grace Ji-Sun Kim
#64045
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (56 years)
Grace Ji-Sun Kim is a Korean-American theologian and Professor of Theology at Earlham School of Religion, Richmond, Indiana. She is best known for books and articles on the social and religious experiences of Korean women immigrants to North America.
Go to Profile#870
Igor Sibaldi
#25681
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (68 years)
Igor Sibaldi , born from Russian mother and Italian father, is an Italian writer, scholar of theology and history of religion. Biography Igor Sibaldi is the author of numerous works on the Scripture and shamanism. He regularly holds conferences and seminars in Italy and abroad about mythology, exegesis and depth psychology. He worked for a long time on angelology in Jewish tradition, equalizing it to an ancient form of psychology.
Go to Profile#871
Borys Gudziak
#18790
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (65 years)
Borys Gudziak is the current Metropolitan-Archbishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia. He founded the Institute of Church History and served as the rector and president of the Ukrainian Catholic University. He was previously ordained as a priest, and later a bishop. Gudziak has authored and edited several books on church history, theology, modern church life, and higher education reforms.
Go to Profile#872
Claus Westermann
#34058
Overall Influence
1909 - 2000 (91 years)
Claus Westermann was a German Protestant Old Testament scholar. He taught at the University of Heidelberg from 1958 to 1978. Biography Born to African missionaries, he finished his studies in 1933 and he became a pastor. During his theological studies he started studying the Old Testament, and became particularly interested in the content of the Psalms. During the Nazi regime he served in the German army for five years where he was a translator on the Russian front. After the war Westermann started preaching again and also went to teach Old Testament at Heidelberg, where he would continue to ...
Go to Profile#873
Adam W. Greenway
#47279
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (47 years)
Adam W. Greenway is an American pastor, theologian and religious leader. He served as the 9th president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas from 2019 to 2022. He was the youngest president in the history of the seminary, being installed at 41 years old. Simultaneous with his role as president, he served as a Professor of Evangelism and Apologetics. A report release by the school in June 2023 concluded that Greenway misspent seminary funds during his tenure.
Go to Profile#874
Gisela Forster
#52666
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (79 years)
Gisela Forster is a German writer, teacher, and Catholic theologian. Life Forster was born in Munich to parents from Bavaria and Hungary. After school at the Elsa-Brändström-Gymnasium in Munich-Pasing, Forster studied Catholic theology, philosophy, arts and architecture at the Technical University of Munich. After graduating, Forster worked as teacher at the Benedictine Schäftlarn school from 1972 to 1989. In 1989, Forster left the job to marry Anselm Forster, with whom she had two children. She was elected to the district council of Starnberg in 1989, serving as chairman on the council until 2002.
Go to Profile#875
Donald McKim
#63722
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (75 years)
Donald K. McKim is an American Presbyterian theologian and editor. He works as Academic and Reference Editor for Westminster John Knox Press. McKim studied at Westminster College, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, and the University of Pittsburgh. He has taught at Memphis Theological Seminary and the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary.
Go to Profile#876
Terryl Givens
#43228
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (68 years)
Terryl Lynn Givens is a senior research fellow at the Neal A. Maxwell Institute of Religious Scholarship at Brigham Young University . Until 2019, he was a professor of literature and religion at the University of Richmond, where he held the James A. Bostwick Chair in English.
Go to Profile#877
Christian M. M. Brady
#40834
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (57 years)
Christian M. M. Brady is an American scholar who specializes in biblical literature, rabbinic literature, and the targumim, especially Targum Lamentations and Targum Ruth. He is the inaugural Dean of the Lewis Honors College and Professor of Modern and Classical Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at the University of Kentucky . He was interim dean of the College of Arts & Sciences at the University of Kentucky from 2020 to 2022. He was Dean of the Schreyer Honors College from 2006 to 2016. He was formerly associate professor of Classical Studies and Jewish Studies at Tulane University. His...
Go to Profile#878
Jan Lindhardt
#40339
Overall Influence
1938 - 2014 (76 years)
Jan Lindhardt was a Danish theologian and writer. He was the son of professor Dr Poul Georg Lindhardt and Gerda Winding, and the elder brother of the Rev Mogens Lindhardt. His nephew is actor Thure Lindhardt. He was married to Tine Lindhardt, Bishop of Funen from 2012 until his death. He graduated with a doctorate in theology from Copenhagen University in 1962, and served as Bishop of Roskilde Diocese from 1997–2008.
Go to Profile#879
Pheme Perkins
#39453
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (80 years)
Pheme Perkins is a Professor of Theology at Boston College, where she has been teaching since 1972. She is a nationally recognized expert on the Greco-Roman cultural setting of early Christianity, as well as the Pauline Epistles and Gnosticism.
Go to Profile#880
Elisabeth Dons Christensen
#63945
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (81 years)
Elisabeth Dons Christensen is a Danish Lutheran theologian who served as bishop for the Diocese of Ribe from 2003 until her retirement in 2014 at the age of 70. Biography Dons Christensen was one of several brothers and sisters, born and raised in the country village of Vester Ørum near Vejle in the east of Jutland. She studied history and religious studies at Aarhus University, graduating in 1973. She received a doctorate in theology in 1993. From 1973, she was a high school and theological college teacher in Esbjerg and Ribe. During the same period, she served as an assistant pastor in Ribe Cathedral.
Go to Profile#881
Mario Aurelio Poli
#22314
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (78 years)
Mario Aurelio Poli is an Argentine prelate of the Catholic Church who was the Archbishop of Buenos Aires from 2013 to 2023. He was the Bishop of Santa Rosa from 2008 to 2013 and before that an auxiliary bishop in Buenos Aires from 2002 to 2008. Pope Francis, his predecessor in Buenos Aires, made him a cardinal in 2014.
Go to Profile#882
James K. Hoffmeier
#34272
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (74 years)
James K. Hoffmeier is an American Old Testament scholar, an archaeologist and an egyptologist. He was Professor of Old Testament and Ancient Near Eastern History and Archaeology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.
Go to Profile#883
Roland Faber
#33273
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (65 years)
Roland Faber is an author and Kilsby Family/John B. Cobb, Jr., Professor of Process Studies at Claremont School of Theology and Professor of Religion and Philosophy at Claremont Graduate University. He is Executive Co-Director of the Center for Process Studies, Executive Director of the Whitehead Research Project in Claremont, California, and Editor of the Contemporary Whitehead Studies series. Faber received a PhD in systematic theology from the University of Vienna in 1992. In 1998, he was appointed assistant professor at the Institute for Dogmatic Theology in Vienna, Austria. In 2005, he r...
Go to Profile#884
Mary E. Hunt
#35110
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (74 years)
Mary E. Hunt is an American feminist theologian who is co-founder and co-director of the Women's Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual in Silver Spring, Maryland, US. A Catholic active in the women-church movement, she lectures and writes on theology and ethics with particular attention to social justice concerns.
Go to Profile#885
Bram van de Beek
#48192
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (79 years)
Abraham "Bram" van de Beek is a Dutch Reformed theologian. He was a professor of biblical and systematic theology at Leiden University between 1981 and 2000. Subsequently he was professor of Christian symbolism at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam until 2010.
Go to Profile#886
Juan Ignacio Larrea Holguín
#27011
Overall Influence
1927 - 2006 (79 years)
Juan Ignacio Larrea Holguín , was archbishop of Guayaquil for ten years, and the first member of the prelature of Opus Dei in Ecuador. He was also a distinguished lawyer, frequently consulted about Ecuadorian Civil law and the author of more than 60 books about jurisprudence.
Go to Profile#887
Norbert Lohfink
#54426
Overall Influence
1928 - Present (97 years)
Norbert Lohfink SJ is a member of the Jesuit Order, German Catholic priest and theologian . He is emeritus professor of exegesis of the Old Testament at the Philosophical-Theological College Sankt Georgen in Frankfurt am Main.
Go to Profile#888
Kenneth K. Tanaka
#49894
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (78 years)
Kenneth Ken'ichi Tanaka , also known as Kenshin Tanaka or Ken'ichi Tanaka is a scholar, author, translator and ordained Jōdo Shinshū priest. He is author and editor of many articles and books on modern Buddhism.
Go to Profile#889
Charles H. Long
#43350
Overall Influence
1926 - 2020 (94 years)
Charles Houston Long was an African-American cultural historian, religious studies scholar, and essayist in the areas of religion, theology, philosophy and studies of modernity. He was a faculty member at the University of Chicago, UNC Chapel Hill, Syracuse University, Duke University, and UC Santa Barbara. His work built on Ferdinand de Saussure's semiotics. Significations in particular is about how the West gets to make meaning about other cultures, but those cultures don't get the opportunity to make meaning about themselves.
Go to Profile#890
James Franklin Kay
#48544
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (77 years)
James Franklin Kay is the Joe R. Engle Professor of Homiletics and Liturgics Emeritus, and Dean and Vice President of Academic Affairs Emeritus at Princeton Theological Seminary. Biography Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Kay earned a B.A. at Pasadena College , San Diego, California, in 1969; an M.Div. at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1972; an M.Phil. and a Ph.D. at Union Theological Seminary, New York City, New York in 1984 and 1991 respectively.
Go to Profile#891
William Hamilton
#60673
Overall Influence
1924 - 2012 (88 years)
William Hughes Hamilton III was a prominent theologian and proponent of the Death of God movement. Hamilton died in 2012 at age 87 in Portland, Oregon. Education and career Hamilton was born March 9, 1924, to William Hughes Hamilton II and Helen Hamilton . in Evanston, Illinois. In 1943 Hamilton graduated from Oberlin College. He served in the United States Navy during World War II, then earned a master's degree from Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York in 1949. In 1952 Hamilton received a doctorate in theology from the University of St Andrews in Scotland.
Go to Profile#892
Katherine Sonderegger
#68817
Overall Influence
Katherine Sonderegger is William Meade Chair in Systematic Theology at Virginia Theological Seminary. Biography Sonderegger received her AB in Medieval Studies from Smith College , an M.Div. and STM at Yale Divinity School, and a Ph.D. from Brown University in Western Religious Thought . Her Ph.D. dissertation was revised and published as That Jesus Christ was Born a Jew: Karl Barth's Doctrine of Israel . She has taught at Middlebury College and Bangor Theological Seminary and, since 2002, at Virginia Theological Seminary, where she became the William Meade Professor in 2014. She was ordai...
Go to Profile#893
Katie Cannon
#24874
Overall Influence
1949 - 2018 (69 years)
Katie Geneva Cannon was an American Christian theologian and ethicist associated with womanist theology and black theology. In 1974 she became the first African-American woman ordained in the United Presbyterian Church .
Go to Profile#894
Thomas B. Warren
#30613
Overall Influence
1920 - 2000 (80 years)
Thomas Bratton Warren was an American professor of philosophy of religion and apologetics at the Harding School of Theology in Memphis, Tennessee, USA, and was an important philosopher and theologian in the Churches of Christ during the latter half of the twentieth century.
Go to Profile#895
Edward Fudge
#26782
Overall Influence
1944 - 2017 (73 years)
Edward William Fudge was an American Christian theologian and lawyer, best known for his book The Fire That Consumes in which he argues for an annihilationist Biblical interpretation of Hell. He has been called "one of the foremost scholars on hell" by The Christian Post. He is the subject of the 2012 independent film Hell and Mr. Fudge.
Go to Profile#896
Gavin D'Costa
#54729
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (67 years)
Gavin D'Costa is the Emeritus Professor of Catholic Theology at the University of Bristol. His academic career at Bristol began in 1993. D'Costa was appointed a visiting professor of Inter-religious Dialogue at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Rome.
Go to Profile#897
Shaunaka Rishi Das
#55099
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (64 years)
Shaunaka Rishi Das is the Director of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies , a position he has held since the centre's foundation in 1997. He is a lecturer, a broadcaster, and Hindu Chaplain to Oxford University. His interests include education, comparative theology, communication, and leadership. He is a member of The Commission on Religion and Belief in British Public Life, convened in 2013 by the Woolf Institute, Cambridge. In 2013 the Indian government appointed him to sit on the International Advisory Council of the Auroville Foundation. Keshava, Rishi Das's wife of 27 years, died in De...
Go to Profile#898
Lorenzo Albacete
#40076
Overall Influence
1941 - 2014 (73 years)
Lorenzo Albacete Cintrón was a Puerto Rican theologian, Roman Catholic priest, scientist and author. A New York Times Magazine contributor, Albacete was one of the leaders in the United States for the international Catholic movement Communion and Liberation. He was the Chairman of the Board of Advisors of Crossroads Cultural Center.
Go to Profile#899
Heiko Oberman
#22099
Overall Influence
1930 - 2001 (71 years)
Heiko Augustinus Oberman was a Dutch historian and theologian who specialized in the study of the Reformation. Life Oberman was born in Utrecht on 15 October 1930. He earned his doctorate in theology from the University of Utrecht in 1957 and joined the faculty of the Harvard Divinity School in 1958. There he rose rapidly from instructor to associate professor and, in 1963, to professor of church history. He was appointed Winn Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Harvard Divinity School in 1964 and continued teaching there until 1966. He then accepted a chair in the theology faculty at the ...
Go to Profile#900
Adela Yarbro Collins
#46140
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (80 years)
Adela Yarbro Collins is an American author and academic, who has served as the Buckingham Professor of New Testament Criticism and Interpretation at Yale Divinity School. Her research focuses on the New Testament, especially the Gospel of Mark and the Book of Revelation, and she has also written on early Christian apocalypticism and eschatology. Collins has also served as the President of the Society of New Testament Studies and as the President of the New England Region of the Society of Biblical Literature .
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