Search People Result | Academic Influence

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,

#1001

Huw Owen

#50564

Overall Influence

1926 - 1996 (70 years)

Huw Parri Owen was a Welsh theologian, writer and academic. Life Owen was born on 30 December 1926 in Cardiff and was educated at Cardiff High School and Jesus College, Oxford, where he studied Literae Humaniores and Theology. He was ordained as a minister in the Presbyterian Church of Wales in 1949 in order to take up an appointment as Professor of New Testament at the United Theological College Aberystwyth before moving to Bangor as Lecturer in New Testament Studies at the University College of North Wales.

#1002

Jay McDaniel

#24681

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (75 years)

Jay B. McDaniel is an American philosopher and theologian. He specializes in Buddhism, Whiteheadian process philosophy and process theology, constructive theology, ecotheology, interfaith dialogue, and spirituality in an age of consumerism. His current interest is "to see how these myriad concerns might unfold in China".

#1003

Daniel A. Arnold

#52535

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (59 years)

Daniel A. Arnold is an American scholar and philosopher. He is Associate Professor of the Philosophy of Religions at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago. His work focuses on Indian Buddhist philosophy, which he engages in a constructive and comparative way. His particular interests are in Indian Buddhist Madhyamaka, and in the appreciation of Indian Buddhist philosophy as an integral part of the broader tradition of Indian philosophy. In this regard, he has been especially interested in issues disputed between Buddhist schools and the orthodox Brahmanical school of Pūrva Mīmāṃsā.

#1004

Ihor Kozlovskyi

#59735

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (70 years)

Ihor Anatoliyovych Kozlovskyi was a Ukrainian scholar, theologian, candidate of historical sciences, writer and public figure. He was a full member of the Donetsk branch of the Shevchenko Scientific Society in Ukraine from 2019. He was also a senior researcher of the Department of Religious Studies of the Hryhorii Skovoroda Institute of Philosophy of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.

#1005

Steve Mason

#49635

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (67 years)

Steve N. Mason is a Canadian historian of Judea in the Graeco-Roman period, best known for his studies of Josephus and early Christian writings. He was professor of classics, history and religious studies at York University in Toronto. He has been Kirby Laing Chair of New Testament Exegesis at Aberdeen University and works today at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands.

#1006

Robert H. Mounce

#58151

Overall Influence

1921 - 2019 (98 years)

Robert Hayden Mounce was an American New Testament scholar, and president emeritus of Whitworth University in Spokane, Washington. Mounce was born in LaSalle, Illinois, in December 1921 and raised in Minot, North Dakota. During the Second World War, he served as a dive bomber pilot in the Naval Air Corps . After the war, he taught public school and served as a missionary in Guatemala, where he was director of the Christian radio station TGNA. He married Jean McTavish in 1952.

#1007

Ralph W. Klein

#54028

Overall Influence

1936 - 2021 (85 years)

Ralph Walter Klein was an American Old Testament scholar. He was Christ Seminary-Seminex Professor Emeritus of Old Testament at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. Klein was born in Springfield, Illinois, and studied at Concordia College in Wisconsin, Concordia Senior College, Concordia Seminary, and Harvard Divinity School. He was ordained as a pastor in the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod in 1966, and taught at Concordia Senior College and Concordia Seminary. After a period as a pastor in St. Louis, Klein taught at Christ Seminary-Seminex before moving to the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago in 1983.

#1008

Dennis MacDonald

#43979

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (78 years)

Dennis Ronald MacDonald is the John Wesley Professor of New Testament and Christian Origins at the Claremont School of Theology in California. MacDonald proposes a theory wherein the earliest books of the New Testament were responses to the Homeric Epics, including the Gospel of Mark and the Acts of the Apostles. The methodology he pioneered is called Mimesis Criticism. If his theories are correct then "nearly everything written on [the] early Christian narrative is flawed." According to him, modern biblical scholarship has failed to recognize the impact of Homeric Poetry.

#1009

Ángel Manuel Rodríguez

#45406

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (79 years)

Ángel Manuel Rodríguez is a Seventh-day Adventist theologian and was the director of the Biblical Research Institute before his retirement. His special research interests include Old Testament, Sanctuary and Atonement, and Old Testament Theology. He has written several books, and authors a monthly column in Adventist World.

#1010

Gerhard Forde

#53217

Overall Influence

1927 - 2005 (78 years)

Gerhard O. Forde was an American Lutheran theologian who wrote extensively on the Protestant Reformation and Lutheran theology and tradition. Background Gerhard Olaf Forde was born in Pope County, Minnesota, and raised near Starbuck. He was the son of Gerhard Olavus and Hannah Forde . He received the B.A. degree from Luther College in 1950, attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison for one year, and then earned the Bachelor of Theology degree from Luther Seminary in 1955. He earned the Th.D. degree from Harvard Divinity School in 1967. Forde also studied at the University of Tübingen and was the Lutheran tutor at Mansfield College, Oxford University, 1968–1970.

#1011

Beverly Roberts Gaventa

#53429

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Beverly Roberts Gaventa is Distinguished Professor of New Testament Interpretation at Baylor University and Helen H.P. Manson Professor of New Testament Literature and Exegesis Emerita at Princeton Theological Seminary.

#1012

Dan Cohn-Sherbok

Dan Cohn-Sherbok

#46729

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (79 years)

Dan Mark Cohn-Sherbok is a rabbi of Reform Judaism and a Jewish theologian. He is Professor Emeritus of Judaism at the University of Wales. Biography Born in Denver, Colorado, he graduated from East High School and was a student at Williams College, Massachusetts, spending a junior year abroad in Athens, Greece.

#1013

Peter W. Ochs

#43732

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Peter W. Ochs is the Edgar M. Bronfman Professor of Modern Judaic Studies at the University of Virginia, where he has served since 1997. He is an influential thinker whose interests include Jewish philosophy and theology, modern and postmodern philosophical theology, pragmatism, and semiotics. Ochs coined the term "scriptural reasoning" and is the co-founder of the Society for Scriptural Reasoning, which promotes interfaith dialog among Christians, Jews, and Muslims through scriptural study groups. He is also a co-founder of the Children of Abraham Institute, which promotes interfaith study ...

#1014

Helen Bond

#42839

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (56 years)

Helen Katharine Bond is a British Professor of Christian Origins and New Testament. She has written many books related to Pontius Pilate, Jesus and Judaism. Biography Bond was born in 1968 and raised in the North East of England. She attended Durham High School. She read biblical studies at the Durham University, University of Tübingen, and the University of St Andrews. At Durham, she completed her PhD on Pontius Pilate under the supervision of James Dunn.

#1015

George V. Pixley

#65247

Overall Influence

1937 - 2023 (86 years)

George V. Pixley was an American Christian theologian. Biography He completed his undergraduate studies in Wheaton College and in Kalamazoo College, where he met and married Janyce Babcock. In the Faculty of Theology of the University of Chicago obtained the PhD in Biblical Studies. In 1963, Pixley was ordained as a Baptist pastor, and he was appointed professor of Bible at the Evangelical Seminary of Puerto Rico. In 1969–1970 he was invited to teach lectures at the Evangelical Higher Institute of Theological Studies ISEDET, in Buenos Aires, where he worked too, as a professor at the Lutheran Theological Faculty.

#1016

Rob Schenck

#10098

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (66 years)

Robert Leonard Schenck is an American Evangelical clergyman who has ministered to elected and appointed officials in Washington, D.C. and serves as president of a non-profit organization named for Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Schenck founded the organization Faith and Action in 1995 and led it until 2018. He is the subject of the Emmy Award-winning 2016 Abigail Disney documentary, The Armor of Light. Schenck stated that he was part of a group that paid Norma McCorvey to lie that she had changed her mind and become against abortion. Once a prominent anti-abortion activist, Schenck has since repudiated this work and expressed support for the legality of abortion.

#1017

Thomas O'Loughlin

#67809

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (66 years)

Thomas O'Loughlin is Professor of Historical Theology at the University of Nottingham. He earned a BA, MPhil, PhD , STB and DD hon.c . Tom studied for his BA in Philosophy and Medieval History at University College Dublin, before going to Maynooth College for his BD, then moving back to do an MPhil. He holds a Diploma in Theology from Mater Dei in Dublin, and a Diploma in Pastoral Theology from All Hallows College, Dublin.

#1018

Bengt Hägglund

#37538

Overall Influence

1920 - 2015 (95 years)

Bengt Vilhelm Hägglund was a Swedish theologian. Hägglund, who is professor emeritus of Christian intellectual history at Lund University, has written several books, of which Teologins historia is his most widely known work. The book, translated, inter alia, to English, German, Portuguese and Russian language, was first published in 1956.

#1019

John H. Thomas

#39494

Overall Influence

The Rev. John H. Thomas was the General Minister and President of the United Church of Christ , a mainline Protestant Christian denomination. Elected in 1999, he served as one of five officers of the UCC who comprise the Collegium of Officers, which oversees national ministries. As General Minister and President, Thomas was the premier spokesperson for the United Church of Christ, officially representing the UCC in ecumenical and interfaith relations. His term ended in October 2009.

#1020

James Gustafson

#56205

Overall Influence

1925 - 2021 (96 years)

James M. Gustafson was an American theological ethicist. He received an honorary doctorate by the Faculty of Theology at Uppsala University in 1985. He has held teaching posts at Yale Divinity School and the Department of Religious Studies , the University of Chicago as professor of theological ethics in the Divinity School , and Emory University as the Henry R. Luce Professor of Humanities and Comparative Studies. He retired in 1998 after 43 years of teaching and research, after being Woodruff Professor of Comparative Studies and of Religion in the Emory College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences.

#1021

D. Stephen Long

#40967

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (64 years)

Duane Stephen Long , also known as D. Stephen Long, is the Cary M. Maguire University Professor of Ethics at Southern Methodist University. Previously, Long was Professor of Systematic Theology at Marquette University. He specializes in systematic theology, Christian ethics, and political theology. His books include The Divine Economy: Theology and Market, which details a Christian approach to economics based in the thought of radical orthodoxy, The Goodness of God: Theology, Church and Social Order and Christian Ethics: A Very Short Introduction.

#1022

Eugene H. Merrill

#58946

Overall Influence

1934 - Present (90 years)

Eugene Haines Merrill is an American Old Testament scholar who has worked as a distinguished professor of Old Testament studies at Dallas Theological Seminary and 2010 president of the Evangelical Theological Society.

#1023

Bernhard Maier

#57730

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (61 years)

Bernhard Maier is a German professor of religious studies, who publishes mainly on Celtic culture and religion. Maier studied comparative religion, comparative linguistics, Celtic and Semitic studies at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, University of Aberystwyth, the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn and University of London. He earned his PhD with a doctorate thesis on the Celtic concept of kingship and its Oriental parallels: "König und Göttin. Die keltische Auffassung des Königtums und ihre orientalischen Parallelen".

#1024

Georg Bätzing

#50421

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (63 years)

Georg Bätzing is a German Catholic theologian who has been Bishop of Limburg since 2016 and chairman of the German Bishops' Conference since March 2020. Early life and career Bätzing was born in Kirchen and grew up in Niederfischbach. He was an altar boy, sang in the church choir and served as an organist there. After his Abitur, he entered the major seminary of the Diocese of Trier. He studied theology and philosophy at Trier University and Freiburg University, graduating in 1985.

#1025

Shafique Virani

#48528

Overall Influence

Shafique N. Virani is Distinguished Professor of Islamic Studies at the Institute of Islamic Studies, University of Toronto. Having earned a master's degree in Islamic Studies from McGill University and a PhD from Harvard University, he has also served as faculty at Harvard University and Zayed University.

#1026

John Painter

#56789

Overall Influence

1935 - Present (89 years)

John Painter, is an Australian academic, New Testament scholar, and Christian theologian specializing in Johannine literature. He is currently Professor of Theology at Charles Sturt University in Canberra.

#1027

Gerhard Schaffran

Gerhard Schaffran

#82512

Overall Influence

1912 - 1996 (84 years)

Gerhard Schaffran was Papal consistory and Auxiliary bishop of Görlitz, of Breslau for the see of Görlitz and Bishop of Dresden-Meissen. Life Schaffran was the son of a teacher, his family moved from Breslau to Leschnitz am Annaberg. In the First World War his father served as an officer and was killed. His widow lived with Gerhard and his siblings at Görlitz. Gerhard Schaffran initially studied at a gymnasium in Berlin, but left high school in Görlitz in order to study theology at Breslau. After his ordination by Adolf Bertram on 1 August 1937, Schaffran served as a chaplain in Breslau. Du...

#1028

Ronald Frank Thiemann

#56872

Overall Influence

1946 - 2012 (66 years)

Ronald Frank Thiemann was an American political theologian and Benjamin Bussey Professor of Theology at Harvard Divinity School. His research in large part focused on the role of religion in public life. He was dean of Harvard Divinity School from 1986 to 1998.

#1029

Irving Greenberg

Irving Greenberg

#14723

Overall Influence

1933 - Present (91 years)

Irving Yitzchak Greenberg , also known as Yitz Greenberg, is an American scholar, author and rabbi. He is known as a strong supporter of Israel, and a promoter of greater understanding between Judaism and Christianity.

#1030

Tikva Frymer-Kensky

#27021

Overall Influence

1943 - 2006 (63 years)

Tikva Simone Frymer-Kensky was a professor at the University of Chicago Divinity School. She received her MA and PhD from Yale University. She had previously served on the faculties of Wayne State University, the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, Yale University, Ben Gurion University, and the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, where she served as director of Biblical studies.

#1031

Roberto S. Goizueta

#60824

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (70 years)

Roberto Segundo Goizueta is a Cuban American Catholic theologian currently holding the Margaret O'Brien Flatley Chair in Catholic Theology at Boston College. Some of his specialties include Latino theology and Christology.

#1032

Gerhard Maria Wagner

#48670

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (70 years)

Gerhard Maria Wagner is an Austrian Roman Catholic priest. He was appointed auxiliary bishop of Linz by Pope Benedict XVI on 31 January 2009, but amidst controversy over his views that sin caused Hurricane Katrina, Wagner turned the post down on 15 February 2009.

#1033

Jamal J. Elias

#67617

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (62 years)

Jamal J. Elias is a scholar and professor of Religious Studies who currently serves as the Special Advisor to the Provost of Aga Khan University. He has written and lectured widely on the Qur'an, Sufism, poetry and modern society.

#1034

Donald E. Messer

#56148

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (83 years)

Donald E. Messer is an American United Methodist theologian and author, and former college and seminary president. He is known for his work to combat world hunger and HIV/AIDS. Messer earned a Ph.D. from Boston University in social ethics. He was president of Dakota Wesleyan University from 1971 to 1981, and president of Iliff School of Theology from 1981 to 2000. He was named both President Emeritus and the Henry White Warren Professor Emeritus of Practical Theology at The Iliff School of Theology. As of 2013, Messer is the Executive Director of the Center for the Church and Global AIDS.

#1035

David Hartman

#15589

Overall Influence

1931 - 2013 (82 years)

David Hartman was an American-Israeli leader and philosopher of contemporary Judaism, founder of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, Israel, and a Jewish author. Biography David Hartman was born in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, New York. He attended Yeshiva Chaim Berlin and the Lubavitch Yeshiva, after which he spent time learning in Lakewood Yeshiva. In 1953, having studied under Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, he received his rabbinical ordination from Yeshiva University in New York. He continued his studies with Soloveitchik until 1960, while pursuing a graduate degree in philosophy with Robert C.

#1036

Robert Gordis

#33742

Overall Influence

1908 - 1992 (84 years)

Robert Gordis was an American leading conservative rabbi. He founded the first Conservative Jewish day school, served as President of the Rabbinical Assembly and the Synagogue Council of America, and was a professor at Jewish Theological Seminary of America from 1940 to 1992.

#1037

Adele Reinhartz

#47649

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (71 years)

Adele Reinhartz is a Canadian academic and a specialist in the history and literature of Christianity and Judaism in the Greco-Roman period, the Gospel of John, early Jewish–Christian relations, literary criticism including feminist literary criticism, feminist exegesis, and the impact of the Bible on popular cinema and television.

#1038

Walmor Oliveira de Azevedo

#57638

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (70 years)

Walmor Oliveira de Azevedo is a prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as auxiliary bishop of São Salvador da Bahia from 1998 till 2004, when he became archbishop of Belo Horizonte. In 2010 he also became bishop for the Brazilian ordinariate for the faithful of eastern rite. In May 2019, he became head of the Brazilian Bishops conference.

#1039

Anne Carr

#63676

Overall Influence

1934 - 2008 (74 years)

Sister Anne Carr was a Catholic nun, a Sister of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, an activist, and feminist theologian at the University of Chicago Divinity School, where she was the first female permanent member of the faculty. She was well known for her beliefs regarding feminism and seen as an advocate for women's rights. Carr specialized in feminism theology regarding Catholic thought and during her lifetime she wrote ground breaking books which examined feminism and Christianity.

#1040

Rickie D. Moore

#55443

Overall Influence

Rickie D. Moore is an American renewal theologian within the Pentecostal movement. He is now the Associate Dean of the Lee University School of Religion. Moore received a B.A. from Lee College in 1976, his M.A. from Vanderbilt University in 1982 and a Ph.D. from Vanderbilt in 1988. He is an ordained bishop of the Church of God, and was appointed to the faculty of the Church of God Theological Seminary in 1982, becoming Professor of Old Testament Studies.

#1041

Gregor Maria Franz Hanke

#56804

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (70 years)

Gregor Maria Hanke OSB is a German prelate of the Catholic Church who has been the bishop of Eichstätt since 2006. A member of the Benedictines, he was abbot of Plankstetten Abbey from 1993 to 2006.

#1042

Joseph A. Bracken

#38359

Overall Influence

1930 - Present (94 years)

Joseph A. Bracken, S.J. is an American philosopher and Catholic theologian. Bracken is a proponent of process philosophy and process theology of Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne. Much of his work is devoted to a synthesis of revealed religion and Christian trinitarian doctrines with a revised process theology. Bracken introduced a field theoretic approach to process metaphysics.

#1043

David Kelsey

#61187

Overall Influence

1932 - Present (92 years)

David H. Kelsey is an American theologian and academic. Biography Kelsey is a graduate of Haverford College and currently Luther Weigle Professor Emeritus of Theology at Yale Divinity School. Like his colleagues Hans Frei and George Lindbeck, Kelsey received both a BD and PhD from Yale. He taught in the Religion Department of Dartmouth College from 1961 to 1965 and was a member of the faculty at Yale Divinity School from 1965 until his retirement in 2005. In 2017 he held The Alonzo L. McDonald Family Chair on the Life and Teachings of Jesus and their Impact on Culture, Candler School of The...

#1044

Gary N. Knoppers

#66708

Overall Influence

1956 - 2018 (62 years)

Gerald "Gary" Neil Knoppers was a professor in the Department of Theology at University of Notre Dame. He wrote books and articles regarding a range of Old Testament and ancient Near Eastern topics. He is particularly renowned for his work on 1 Chronicles, writing I Chronicles 1 – 9 and I Chronicles 10 – 29 , which together comprise a significant treatment of the work of the Chronicler. In May 2005 the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies/Societe canadienne des Etudes bibliques granted the R. B. Y. Scott Award to Knoppers for his two-volume Anchor Bible commentary on I Chronicles

#1045

Mitri Raheb

#32673

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (62 years)

Mitri Raheb is a Palestinian Christian, the pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem , and the founder and president of the Diyar Consortium, a group of Lutheran-based, ecumenically-oriented institutions serving the Bethlehem area.

#1046

David Wenham

#65406

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (79 years)

David Wenham is a British theologian and Anglican clergyman, who is the author of several books on the New Testament. Early life and education David Wenham was born in 1945, the son of theologian John Wenham. He was brought up in Durham and Bristol. He studied theology at Pembroke College, Cambridge, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1967; as per tradition, his BA was later promoted to a Master of Arts degree. He undertook doctoral research under F. F. Bruce at the University of Manchester, completing his Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1970.

#1047

Gabriel Arya

#75540

Overall Influence

Gabriel Arya , also called Gabriel Qaṭraya, was a biblical exegete who wrote in Syriac. The byname Qaṭraya indicates that he was a native of Beth Qaṭraye . Arya, the Syriac for lion, is probably a nickname. He was a member of the Church of the East.

#1048

John F. Harvey

#49490

Overall Influence

1918 - 2010 (92 years)

John Francis Harvey was a Catholic priest, a moral theologian, an educator and the founder of the DeSales School Theology in Washington, DC. Harvey founded the Courage Apostolate, an official Catholic organization that counsels gay or same-sex attracted Catholics to help them remain abstinent from gay/same-sex sexual activities.

#1049

Christopher Seitz

#69865

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (70 years)

Christopher R. Seitz is an American Old Testament scholar and theologian known for his work in biblical interpretation and theological hermeneutics. He is the senior research professor of biblical interpretation at Toronto School of Theology, Wycliffe College. He is also an ordained priest in the Episcopal Church, and served as canon theologian in the Episcopal Diocese of Dallas .

#1050

Douglas Duckworth

Douglas Duckworth

#75299

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (53 years)

Douglas S. Duckworth is an American academic working in the field of Buddhist philosophy and Tibetan Buddhism. Career Douglas Duckworth currently holds a position at Temple University in the Department of Religion and has previously taught at Kathmandu University.

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