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,

#1151

Jean Guitton

#3947
Overall Influence
1901 - 1999 (98 years)
Jean Guitton was a French Catholic philosopher and theologian. Le Monde called him "the last of the great Catholic philosophers." Biography Born in Saint-Étienne, Loire in August 1901, he was the son of an industrialist. He studied at the Lycée du Parc in Lyon and was accepted at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris in 1920. His principal religious and intellectual influence was from a blind priest, Francois Pouget. He finished his philosophical studies in the early 1920s and taught in a number of secondary schools. Guitton was a disciple of philosopher Henri Bergson.
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#1152

Margaret Hebblethwaite

#70950
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (73 years)
Margaret Isabella Mary Hebblethwaite is a British writer, journalist, activist and religious worker. The daughter of wood engraver Mary Olive and historian George Speaight, Hebblethwaite is the sister of Antony Speaight, QC. She read theology and philosophy at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford University, and at the Gregorian University in Rome. In 1974, she met and married Peter Hebblethwaite, a Jesuit who left the priesthood after a decade in the ministry. After laicization, he worked as an editor, journalist and Vaticanologist. The couple married and had three children.
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#1153

John Swinton

#76181
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (67 years)
John Swinton, is a Scottish theologian, academic, and Presbyterian minister. He is the Chair in Divinity and Religious Studies at the School of Divinity, History, and Philosophy, University of Aberdeen. John is founder of the university's Centre for Spirituality, Health and Disability.
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#1154

Raymond Bryan Dillard

Raymond Bryan Dillard
#62707
Overall Influence
1944 - 1993 (49 years)
Raymond Bryan Dillard was a professor of Old Testament language and literature at Westminster Theological Seminary. Life Dillard was born on January 7, 1944, in Louisville, Kentucky, the son of Raymond and Ruth Dillard. After graduating from high school in Fayetteville, North Carolina, in 1962, he went to study at Bob Jones University , Westminster Theological Seminary , and Dropsie University . He did postdoctoral research at Temple University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Tel Aviv University. He taught at Westminster Theological Seminary as professor of Old Testament language and lit...
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#1155

R. C. Sproul Jr.

#62766
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (59 years)
Robert Craig Sproul, better known as R.C. Sproul Jr., is an American Calvinist writer, theologian, and pastor, and the son of R. C. Sproul. Life Sproul holds degrees from Grove City College and Reformed Theological Seminary and received his D.Min. in theology from Whitefield Theological Seminary .
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#1156

Jozef Haľko

Jozef Haľko
#57447
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (60 years)
Jozef Haľko is an Auxiliary Bishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Bratislava, Titular Bishop of Serra, professor of church history at the Roman Catholic Cyrilo-Methodian Theological Faculty at the Comenius University in Bratislava and an author.
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#1157

James K. A. Smith

James K. A. Smith
#23341
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (54 years)
James K. A. Smith is a Canadian-American philosopher who is currently Professor of Philosophy at Calvin University, holding the Gary & Henrietta Byker Chair in Applied Reformed Theology & Worldview. He is the current editor-in-chief of the literary journal Image.
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#1158

Bryan J. Cuevas

#71145
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (57 years)
Bryan J. Cuevas is an American Tibetologist and historian of religion. He is John F. Priest Professor of Religion and Director of Buddhist and Tibetan Studies at Florida State University, where he specializes in Tibetan Buddhist history, literature, and culture. His research focuses on Tibetan history and historiography, hagiography and biographical literature, Buddhist popular religion, the literary history of death narratives and death-related practices, and the politics of magic and ritual power in premodern Tibetan societies, from roughly the eleventh through the early eighteenth centurie...
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#1159

Michael Green

#70411
Overall Influence
1930 - 2019 (89 years)
Edward Michael Bankes Green was a British theologian, Anglican priest, Christian apologist and author of more than 50 books. Early life, education and ministry Green's mother was Australian and his father was Welsh. He became a committed Christian through the ministry of E. J. H. Nash . He was educated at Clifton College and Exeter College, Oxford and subsequently at Queens' College, Cambridge while preparing for ordained ministry at Ridley Hall. He was admitted to the degree of Doctor of Divinity by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the University of Toronto . He was ordained deacon in 195...
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#1160

Glenn Shuck

#42416
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (52 years)
Glenn W. Shuck was an assistant professor in the Religion Department at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. He received his Ph.D. from Rice University, and is best known as a scholar of North American evangelicalism.
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#1161

Tobias Churton

#57199
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (64 years)
Tobias Churton is a British scholar of Rosicrucianism, Freemasonry, Gnosticism, and other esoteric movements. He has a Master's degree in Theology from Brasenose College, Oxford. He is the author of Gnostic Philosophy, The Magus of Freemasonry, and Freemasonry and other works on esotericism.
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#1162

David Lyle Jeffrey

#50689
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (83 years)
David Lyle Jeffrey is a Canadian-American scholar of literature and religion, currently a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Baylor Institute for Studies in Religion. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada . In 2003 he was given the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Conference of Christianity and Literature.
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#1163

Adolphe Gesché

#55045
Overall Influence
1928 - 2003 (75 years)
Adolphe Gesché was a Belgian Catholic priest and theologian. He was professor of Dogmatic Theology at the Faculty of Theology of the Catholic University of Louvain and author of several works in the field of Theological studies.
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#1164

Edmund Colledge

#44270
Overall Influence
1910 - 1999 (89 years)
Edmund Colledge was an English academic, military officer, and Roman Catholic priest. He is chiefly known for his scholarly publications on European medieval literature, in particular spiritual writers from that era. His 1962 anthology, The Medieval Mystics of England, is still widely used in university courses to this day. Chief among his works is his edition of A book of showings to the anchoress Julian of Norwich which he co-edited with James Walsh.
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#1165

Charles Taliaferro

#32091
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (72 years)
Charles Taliaferro is an American philosopher specializing in theology and philosophy of religion. He is an emeritus professor of philosophy at St. Olaf College, a senior research fellow at the Institute for Faithful Research, and a member of the Royal Institute of Philosophy. He is the author, co-author, editor, or co-editor of twenty books, most recently The Image in Mind; Theism, Naturalism and the Imagination, co-authored with the American artist Jil Evans. He has been a visiting scholar or guest lecturer at a large number of universities, including Brown, Cambridge, Notre Dame, Oxford, Princeton, and the University of Chicago.
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#1166

Clemens Thoma

#68629
Overall Influence
1932 - 2011 (79 years)
Clemens Thoma was a Swiss theologian. He was professor of theology and Jewish studies and founder of the Institute for Jewish-Christian Studies at the University of Lucerne. He grew up as one of eleven children in a family in the Canton of St. Gallen. After theological studies at St. Augustin near Bonn and St. Gabriel in Vienna, he was ordained a priest. At the University of Vienna, he studied Judaism under Kurt Schubert.
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#1167

Masao Takenaka

#65555
Overall Influence
1925 - 2006 (81 years)
Masao Takenaka was a Japanese theologian who taught for over 40 years at Doshisha University in Kyoto, Japan, where he was a Professor of Christian Ethics and Sociology of Religion. Takenaka was born in Beijing, China in 1925, and lived in China for his first ten years; his father worked for the South Manchuria Railway. He began his studies at Kyoto University, but was drafted into the Japanese army during World War II and sent to Hokkaido. After the war, he completed a degree in business and then studied theology at Doshisha. At the Yale Divinity School in Yale University, he was greatly influenced by H.
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#1168

Christopher M. Tuckett

#85168
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (76 years)
Christopher M. Tuckett is a British biblical scholar and Anglican priest. He holds the Title of Distinction of Professor of New Testament Studies at the University of Oxford and is a Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford.
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#1169

Yaşar Nuri Öztürk

#14101
Overall Influence
1951 - 2016 (65 years)
Yaşar Nuri Öztürk was a Turkish Islamic scholar, university professor of Islamic philosophy, lawyer, columnist and a former member of Turkish parliament. He has been described as a Quranist and has given many conferences on Islamic thought, humanity and human rights in Turkey, the USA, Europe, the Middle East and the Balkans. In 1999, members of a violent extremist group called Great Eastern Islamic Raiders' Front confessed that they had planned an assassination attempt that never took place.
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#1170

David Fergusson

#57180
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (68 years)
David Alexander Syme Fergusson is a Scottish theologian and Presbyterian minister. Since 2021, he has been Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge. Early life and education Fergusson was born on 3 August 1956 in Glasgow, Scotland. He studied philosophy at the University of Glasgow, graduating with an undergraduate Master of Arts degree in 1977. He then studied theology at the University of Edinburgh, graduating with a Bachelor of Divinity degree in 1980. He then undertook a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Christian philosophy at the University of Oxford; his DPhil was a...
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#1171

George Riashi

#49201
Overall Influence
1933 - 2012 (79 years)
George Riashi was the Greek Melkite Catholic bishop of Melkite Greek Catholic Archeparchy of Tripoli and all North Lebanon. Life George Riashi was one of nine children of Khattar and Zahia Riashi. Until 1948 he attended the local school and then moved to the Saint John's Basilian Seminary. Until 1953, he remained in the Basilian seminary and made his temporal vows. His religious name was Athanasius, according to Athanasius of Alexandria. Riashi started his religious studies to become a priest in 1955 in the Basilian Chouerite Order's Mar Yohanna Seminary in Khenchara and later in Saint Joseph University in Beirut in the American University of Beirut.
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#1172

Tamal Krishna Goswami

Tamal Krishna Goswami
#66026
Overall Influence
1946 - 2002 (56 years)
Tamal Krishna Goswami , born Thomas G. Herzig in New York City, New York, United States, served on the International Society for Krishna Consciousness's Governing Body Commission from its inception in 1970. He completed a bachelor's degree in religious studies at Southern Methodist University.
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#1173

Tina Beattie

#38953
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (69 years)
Tina Beattie is a British Christian theologian, writer and broadcaster. Until August 2020, she was the Professor of Catholic Studies at the University of Roehampton in London and Director of the Digby Stuart Research Centre for Religion, Society and Human Flourishing at the same university. In retirement, she is remaining Director of Catherine of Siena College at the University of Roehampton and is writing fiction.
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#1174

Valson Thampu

#29196
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Revd. Valson Thampu is an Indian educator, Christian theologian, who was the Principal of St Stephen's College, University of Delhi, Delhi, from 2008 to February 2016. Prior to this he was a lecturer at the college and its officiating principal since May 2007. He is a translator from Malayalam to English and his translation of The Scent of the Other Side won the Crossword award. His second translated work, Gift in Green was published by HarperCollins in 2011.
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#1175

Benedict Ashley

#28161
Overall Influence
1915 - 2013 (98 years)
Benedict M. Ashley, O.P. , was an American theologian and philosopher who had a major influence on 20th century Catholic theology and ethics in America through his writing, teaching, and consulting with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Author of 19 books, Ashley was a major exponent of the River Forest Thomism. Health Care Ethics, which he co-authored in 1975 and now in its fifth edition, continues to be a fundamental text in the field of Catholic Medical Ethics. Ashley taught at numerous institutions and was an active teacher, consultant, and author. He was a faculty member o...
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#1176

Hartmut Zinser

Hartmut Zinser
#52542
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
Hartmut Zinser is a German scholar in the field of religious studies, history of religions, and ethnology. Biography Education and Career Zinser studied religious studies at the Free University of Berlin, Germany where he received his PhD in 1975 and made his post-doctorate in 1980. From 1984 to 1988 he had a Professorship for religious studies at the Free University of Berlin and, after a short break , received a call to the Free University in 1990 where he has been a professor at the Institute for the Scientific Study of Religion ever since.
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#1177

Lawrence Boadt

#83741
Overall Influence
1942 - 2010 (68 years)
Lawrence Edward Boadt, C.S.P. , was an American Paulist priest and Biblical scholar, who advocated on behalf of improved communication and understanding between Christians and Jews. Life Boadt was born in Los Angeles, California, on October 26, 1942. After high school, he entered the novitiate of the Paulist Fathers in Vineland, New Jersey, where he made his initial promises as a member of the congregation on September 8, 1962. He then earned bachelor's and master's degrees from St. Paul's College in Washington, D.C., the house of formation for the Paulist Fathers. He received ordination as a ...
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#1178

Graham Stanton

#69536
Overall Influence
1940 - 2009 (69 years)
Graham Norman Stanton was a New Zealand biblical scholar who taught at King's College, London, and as Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge. A New Testament specialist, Stanton's special interests were in the Gospels, with a particular focus on Matthew's Gospel; Paul's letters, with a particular focus on Galatians; and second-century Christian writings, with a particular interest in Justin Martyr.
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#1179

Donald Robinson

#48584
Overall Influence
1922 - 2018 (96 years)
Donald William Bradley Robinson was an Australian bishop in the Anglican Church of Australia. He was Archbishop of Sydney from 1982 to 1992. Family and education Robinson was born in Lithgow, New South Wales on 9 November 1922, the son of Richard Bradley Robinson, sometime Archdeacon of North Sydney. His first year of secondary school studies was at North Sydney Boys High School; he was then educated at Sydney Church of England Grammar School, the University of Sydney and Queens' College, Cambridge. His undergraduate studies were interrupted by service in World War II. His niece is the retir...
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#1180

Tripp York

#32250
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (51 years)
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#1181

J. A. O. Preus II

#65559
Overall Influence
1920 - 1994 (74 years)
Jacob Aall Ottesen Preus II was an American Lutheran pastor, professor, author, seminary president and church denominational president. He served as the eighth president of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod from 1969 to 1981. He was a major figure in the "Seminex" theological/political controversy, which resulted in a schism in the LCMS during the early 1970s.
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#1182

Carl Fredrik Wisløff

Carl Fredrik Wisløff
#70851
Overall Influence
1908 - 2004 (96 years)
Carl Fredrik Wisløff was a Norwegian Lutheran theologian and preacher, who spent much of his professional career at the MF Norwegian School of Theology. He is considered among the most important lay preachers in 20th-century Norway.
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#1183

Moshe Meiselman

#37455
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (82 years)
Moshe Meiselman is an American-born Orthodox rabbi and rosh yeshiva of Yeshiva Toras Moshe in Jerusalem, which he established in 1982. He also founded and served as principal of Yeshiva University of Los Angeles from 1977 to 1982. He is a descendant of the Lithuanian Jewish Soloveitchik rabbinic dynasty.
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#1184

J. Todd Billings

#83617
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (51 years)
J. Todd Billings is the Gordon H. Girod Research Professor of Reformed Theology at Western Theological Seminary in Holland, Michigan. Billings has lectured in Europe, South Africa, and the United States, and has published in a variety of journals, including Modern Theology, Harvard Theological Review, Missiology, and International Journal of Systematic Theology, as well as periodicals such as Christianity Today, The Christian Century, and Sojourners.
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#1185

Pieter Willem van der Horst

#53826
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Pieter Willem van der Horst is a scholar and university professor emeritus specializing in New Testament studies, Early Christian literature, and the Jewish and Hellenistic context of Early Christianity.
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#1186

George Huntston Williams

#62780
Overall Influence
1914 - 2000 (86 years)
George Huntston Williams was an American academic, historian of Christianity, and professor of Nontrinitarian Christian theology. His works focused on the historical research of Nontrinitarian Christian movements that emerged during the Protestant Reformation, primarily Socinianism and Unitarianism.
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#1187

Karen Kilby

#69549
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (60 years)
Karen Kilby is an American lay Catholic theologian. She is currently the Bede Professor of Catholic Theology in the Department of Theology and Religion at Durham University. Early life and education Born in England and raised in Connecticut, Kilby graduated with a BA Summa Cum Laude in Mathematics and Religious Studies from Yale University in 1986. She also earned a MASt. in Mathematics from the University of Cambridge before completing her PhD in Theology at Yale University , studying under George Lindbeck and Kathryn Tanner . Her thesis focused on the theology of the Catholic theologian ...
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#1188

Richard Gaillardetz

#72434
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
Richard R. Gaillardetz was an American theologian specializing in questions relating to Catholic ecclesiology and the structures of authority in the Roman Catholic Church. For his dissertation he researched ‘the Theology of the Ordinary Universal Magisterium of Bishops’. He is the author or editor of thirteen books, the most recent of which is An Unfinished Council: Vatican II, Pope Francis, and the Renewal of Catholicism .
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#1189

Fernando Segovia

#79213
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (76 years)
Fernando F. Segovia is a Cuban American biblical scholar, theologian, scriptural critic, and cultural critic. He is the Oberlin Graduate Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at Vanderbilt University Divinity School. In his role as a practitioner of postcolonial biblical criticism, Segovia focuses upon the New Testament and the origins of Christianity. He is well known as a specialist in the Johannine literature and biblical hermeneutics.
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#1190

Walter Künneth

#49600
Overall Influence
1901 - 1997 (96 years)
Walter Künneth was a German Protestant theologian. During the Nazi era, he was part of the Confessing Church, and in the 1960s took part in the debate around the demands of Rudolf Bultmann to 'de-mythologize' the New Testament as an advocate of a word-oriented interpretation of the Bible. The Walter Künneth Prize is named after him.
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#1191

William A. Graham

#54289
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (81 years)
William Albert Graham Jr. is an American scholar of Islamic studies and the history of religion, the Murray A. Albertson Professor of Middle Eastern Studies, emeritus, and University Distinguished Service Professor, emeritus, at Harvard University.
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#1192

Paige Patterson

#68856
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (82 years)
L. Paige Patterson served as the fifth president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C., from 1992 to 2003, as president of the Southern Baptist Convention from 1998 to 2000, and as the eighth president of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, from 2003 until his firing in 2018. He played a major role in the Southern Baptist "conservative resurgence", called "Fundamentalist Takeover" by opponents. He has been alternately described as a fundamentalist and a conservative evangelical.
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#1193

Mario Iceta

Mario Iceta
#51760
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (59 years)
Mario Iceta is a Spanish prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He has been serving as archbishop of Burgos since his installation on 5 December 2020. He previously served as auxiliary bishop and bishop of Bilbao.
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#1194

David Jasper

#61995
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (73 years)
Dawid Kamil Patryk Jasper Wójcik is a streamer on twitch Professor Emeritus of Literature and Theology at the University of Pabianice. Jasper collected multiple degrees from Oxford in both English and Theology. He graduated in English from Jesus College and in Theology from St Stephen's House . He was ordained deacon in 1976 and priest in 1977. He later completed his doctorate at Durham University , where he also served as Chaplain until 1988.
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#1195

Daniel Migliore

#66546
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (89 years)
Daniel L. Migliore is a Christian theologian and author. He is Professor Emeritus of Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. His works include:Faith Seeking Understanding: An Introduction to Christian Theology Rachel's Cry: Prayer of Lament and Rebirth of Hope The Power of God and the Gods of Power Called to Freedom: Liberation Theology and the Future of Christian Doctrine The Power of God The Lord's Prayer: Perspectives for Reclaiming Christian Prayer Hope for the Kingdom and Responsibility for the World Protestant Theology at the Crossroads: How to Face the Crucial Tasks for Theology in the Twenty-First Century The Church and Israel: Romans 9-11 About: He holds a B.D.
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#1196

Richard S. Taylor

#66338
Overall Influence
1912 - 2006 (94 years)
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#1197

Aaron W. Hughes

#80795
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (56 years)
Aaron W. Hughes is a Canadian academic, author, and professor of religious studies. He holds the Dean's Professor of the Humanities and the Philip S. Bernstein Professor of Religious Studies in the department of religion and classics at the University of Rochester. Previously, he was the Gordon and Gretchen Gross Professor of Jewish Studies at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York from 2009 to 2012, and, from 2001 to 2009, professor of religious studies at the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada.
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#1198

Vekoslav Grmič

Vekoslav Grmič
#59582
Overall Influence
1923 - 2005 (82 years)
Vekoslav Grmič was a Slovenian Roman Catholic bishop and theologian, known for his sympathy towards socialist ideas. Biography He was born in the Lower Styrian village of Sveti Jurij ob Ščavnici in what was then the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. He studied at a Roman Catholic priest seminary in Maribor. Already as a young man, he became influenced by the social thought of Janez Evangelist Krek, Edvard Kocbek and the German philosopher Romano Guardini. After the invasion of Yugoslavia and the Nazi occupation of northern Slovenia in April 1941, Grmič started collaborating with the Comm...
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#1199

Dale Martin

#36204
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Dale Basil Martin is an American New Testament scholar and historian of Christianity. Career Martin joined the faculty of Yale University in 1999 and retired as the Woolsey Professor of Religious Studies in 2018. Before Yale, he was a faculty member at Rhodes College and Duke University.
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#1200

Ronald Goetz

#65312
Overall Influence
1933 - 2006 (73 years)
Ronald Goetz was a theologian, professor, pastor, and author who held the Niebuhr Distinguished Chair in Christian Theology and Ethics at Elmhurst College from 1986 until 1999. Background and education Goetz was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. He earned his B.S. from Northwestern University , his B.D. from Harvard Divinity School , and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Northwestern University .
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