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,
#1201
Aerius of Sebaste
#40203
Overall Influence
Aerius of Pontus was a 4th-century presbyter of Sebaste in Pontus. He taught doctrines that were in opposition to 4th-5th century Christian beliefs. His views are known from St Epiphanius's Panarion in which he was accused of being an Arian. For a short period, he had many followers in Sebaste. He failed to make his teachings widely popular and his sect died out soon after his death. Aerius of Sebaste is sometimes seen as an early proto-protestant, along with Jovinian, Helvidius and Vigiliantius.
Go to Profile#1202
Davor Džalto
#29761
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (44 years)
Davor Džalto is an artist, art historian, theologian and philosopher of Bosnian-Herzegovinian origin. Biography Džalto was born in Travnik, Bosnia and Herzegovina. He graduated from the School of Art in Niš, Serbia. As an 18-year-old student he published his first book – On Writing as an Artistic, Historical, Social and Cultural Phenomenon.
Go to Profile#1203
Marek Jędraszewski
#16589
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (75 years)
Marek Jędraszewski is a Polish Roman Catholic prelate who has been Metropolitan Archbishop of Kraków since 8 December 2016. He served as the Metropolitan Archbishop of Łódź from 2012 to 2017. He has also been Vice-President of the Polish Episcopal Conference since 2014.
Go to Profile#1204
Ann Louise Gilligan
#44001
Overall Influence
1945 - 2017 (72 years)
Ann Louise Gilligan was an Irish theologian who taught at Saint Patrick's College, Drumcondra . A former nun, she was the wife of Katherine Zappone. In Zappone and Gilligan v. Revenue Commissioners , they unsuccessfully sought recognition of their Canadian marriage. Despite failing in the courts, Gilligan was a leading campaigner in Ireland's 2015 same-sex marriage referendum, and ultimately succeeded in having her marriage recognised in Irish law before her death in 2017.
Go to Profile#1205
Chris Huebner
#63408
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (55 years)
Christopher Kennedy Huebner is an associate professor of theology and philosophy at Canadian Mennonite University, as well as co-editor of Herald Press's Polyglossia series. Huebner was born and raised in Winnipeg. He received a Bachelor of Theology degree from Canadian Mennonite Bible College in 1992, as well as Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees in philosophy from the University of Manitoba in 1992 and 1995 respectively. He received a Doctor of Philosophy degree in theology and ethics from Duke University in 2002 with the dissertation Unhandling History: Anti-Theory, Ethics, and the Practice of Witness.
Go to Profile#1206
Michael Bird
#84765
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (50 years)
Michael F. Bird is an Australian Anglican priest, theologian, and New Testament scholar. Biography In his teenage years, Bird was an atheist who saw Christianity, "as a way of oppressing people, a purely human construct.” After becoming a Christian, he has been a Baptist, Presbyterian, and an Anglican. He has recently been called by the ecumenical media platform Eternity a "heavy hitter" in the world of New Testament scholarship and Jesus's divinity.
Go to Profile#1207
Mahinda Deegalle
#68439
Overall Influence
Mahinda Deegalle is a scholar and writer who teaches at Bath Spa University. In 2000, he held the Numata Professorship in Buddhist Studies at McGill University. He writes both in Sinhala and English.
Go to Profile#1208
Erik Borgman
#71764
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (67 years)
Professor Erik Borgman is a Dutch professor of systematic theology at the University of Tilburg, the Netherlands. At the Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands, he was the Director of the Heyendaal Institute, an institute for interdisciplinary research. He is the biographer of the Flemish theologian Edward Schillebeeckx. He was also the President of the International Society for Religion, Literature and Culture. He is a member of the Editorial Board and the Presidential Board of Concilium: International Journal for Theology, also an editor of the Dutch Tijdschrift voor Theologie and member of the Third Order of Saint Dominic.
Go to Profile#1209
John Bright
#47908
Overall Influence
1908 - 1995 (87 years)
John Bright was an American biblical scholar and the author of several books, including the influential A History of Israel , currently in its fourth edition . He was closely associated with the American school of biblical criticism pioneered by William F. Albright, which sought to marry archaeology to a defense of the reliability of the Bible, especially the earlier books of the Old Testament.
Go to Profile#1210
Richard L. Pratt Jr.
#59119
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (71 years)
Richard Linwood Pratt Jr. is an American theologian, author, and founder and President of Third Millennium Ministries. Third Millennium was launched in response to the lack of training of Christian leaders around the world. Third Millennium recognizes where the church is growing the fastest, those Christian leaders have the least amount of training. Pratt personally witnessed this in the 1980s as he traveled for missions. Helping the church worldwide has become his passion. He believes that any person that has the desire to learn more about the Bible should be given that opportunity in their...
Go to Profile#1211
Zuiho Yamaguchi
#52555
Overall Influence
1926 - Present (98 years)
was a Japanese Buddhologist and Tibetologist. He was an emeritus professor at the University of Tokyo, where he also took his doctorate degree in Sanskrit in 1954. He also studied in Paris and for many years was a researcher at the Tōyō Bunko. He retired in 1986.
Go to Profile#1212
Gabriel Said Reynolds
#74517
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (51 years)
Gabriel Said Reynolds is an American academic and historian of religion, who serves as Jerome J. Crowley and Rosaleen G. Crowley Professor of Theology and assistant professor of Islamic Studies and Theology at the University of Notre Dame. His scholarship focuses on World Religions and World Church, History of Christianity, Qur'anic Studies, Origins of Islam, and Muslim-Christian relations.
Go to Profile#1213
Giacomo Guido Ottonello
#85853
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Giacomo Guido Ottonello is an Italian prelate of the Catholic Church who has spent his career in the diplomatic service of the Holy See. He was Apostolic Nuncio to Slovakia from 2017 to 2021 and Nuncio to Ecuador from 2005 to 2017.
Go to Profile#1214
Bill Loader
#45145
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
William Ronald George Loader is a minister of the Uniting Church in Australia and emeritus professor of New Testament at Murdoch University in Perth, Western Australia. From 1978, Loader was New Testament lecturer at the Perth Theological Hall of the Uniting Church in Australia; from 1986, he was lecturer and later Professor of New Testament at Murdoch University .
Go to Profile#1215
Gianfranco Gardin
#86994
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
Gianfranco Agostino Gardin is Archbishop-Bishop of Treviso. Gardin was born at San Polo di Piave, in the Province of Treviso, Italy. In 1946, when he was about two years old, his family moved to Venice, where he grew up.
Go to Profile#1216
Jan Szarek
#80544
Overall Influence
1936 - 2020 (84 years)
Jan Szarek was a Polish bishop of the Evangelical-Augsburg Church in Poland. He was also the head of the Polish Ecumenical Council from 1993 to 2001. He held an honorary doctorate from the Christian Theological Academy in Warsaw.
Go to Profile#1217
Norman J. Kansfield
#34501
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (84 years)
Norman J. Kansfield is an American minister who is a senior scholar in residence at Drew University. He was suspended from being a minister in the Reformed Church in America and president of the New Brunswick Theological Seminary in 2005 after officiating at his daughter's same-sex marriage.
Go to Profile#1218
Derek Thomas
#84864
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (71 years)
Derek W. H. Thomas is a Reformed pastor and theologian known for his teaching, writing and editorial work. He is currently the senior pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Columbia, South Carolina and distinguished visiting professor of systematic and historical theology at Reformed Theological Seminary in Atlanta, Georgia.
Go to Profile#1219
Corrado Balducci
#91753
Overall Influence
1923 - 2008 (85 years)
Corrado Balducci was a Catholic theologian of the Vatican Curia, a close friend of the pope, a long-time exorcist for the Archdiocese of Rome, and a Prelate of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples and the Society for the Propagation of the Faith. He has written several books about the subliminal messages in rock and metal music, diabolic possessions, and extraterrestrials.
Go to Profile#1220
Yisrael Friedman
#19633
Overall Influence
1923 - 2017 (94 years)
Yisrael Friedman was known as the Pashkaner Rebbe . He was a lecturer at the Tel Aviv University and the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and the rosh yeshiva of a hesder yeshiva in Netivot. Friedman was a sixth-generation descendant of Rebbe Yisrael of Rizhin. He resided in the southern Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo. He was married to Rebbetzin Tziporah, a daughter of the Imrei Chaim of Vizhnitz. One of his sons is Hoshea Friedman, a brigadier general in the IDF. The Rebbe's grandsons study in various hesder yeshivos. On Monday, May 1, 2017, Rebbi Friedman died at the age of 93, leaving b...
Go to Profile#1221
Michael Northcott
#44836
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (69 years)
Michael Stafford Northcott is Professor Emeritus of Ethics at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. He is best known for his contributions to environmental theology and ethics. Life Born in London on 13 May 1955 to James and Betty Northcott, Michael Northcott was raised in Kent, England, and attended schools in Beckenham and Cranbrook. He was married in 1977 to Jill Benz, with whom he has two daughters and a son.
Go to Profile#1222
Günter Altner
#42222
Overall Influence
1936 - 2011 (75 years)
Günter Altner was a German interdisciplanarily active scientist, biologist, Protestant theologian, ecologist, environmentalist, writer and lecturer. Altner had briefly been a professor of human biology at the University of Education Schwäbisch Gmünd, subsequently focussed on theology, his second area of education, and was a professor of protestant theology at the University of Koblenz and Landau for 22 years.
Go to Profile#1223
Kurt Lüthi
#52930
Overall Influence
1923 - 2010 (87 years)
Kurt Lüthi was a Swiss Reformed theologian and a professor at the University Vienna. Life Lüthi studied Protestant theology in Bern and Basel, amongst his teachers were Karl Barth, Karl Ludwig Schmidt and Oscar Cullmann. In 1949 he became pastor at the Reformed church of the Canton of Bern, first in Beatenberg, later on in Biel. In 1955 he achieved his doctorate in theology at the University of Basel with a thesis on Judas Iscariot, in 1959 he habilitated at the University of Bern. From 1964 until his retirement 1990 Lüthi held the chair for systematic theology at the Protestant faculty of the University of Vienna.
Go to Profile#1224
Alberto Soggin
#66134
Overall Influence
1926 - 2010 (84 years)
Jan Alberto Soggin was a leading Italian biblical scholar. Early life Soggin was born on 10 March 1926. He took his first degrees in law at the Sapienza University of Rome and in theology at the Waldensian Theological Seminary in Rome.
Go to Profile#1225
Alice Bach
#79708
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (82 years)
Alice Bach is an American feminist biblical scholar. She is Archbishop Hallinan Professor Emerita of Religious Studies at Case Western Reserve University. Biography Alice Bach was born 6 April 1942, in New York City. She studied at Barnard College.
Go to Profile#1226
Peter Adam
#88565
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Peter James Adam is an Australian Christian minister. An Anglican priest, he served as vicar of St Jude's Church in Carlton, Melbourne, for 20 years, where he is now vicar emeritus; and principal of Ridley College for ten years.
Go to Profile#1227
Michael Patella
#87191
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Father Michael Patella, OSB, is a monk of Saint John's Abbey, an author, theologian, and professor of theology at Saint John's University in Minnesota, United States. He studied at the Pontifical Biblical Institute, Rome and at the École biblique et archéologique française de Jérusalem, Israel.
Go to Profile#1228
Edward Jarvis
#42443
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (49 years)
Edward Jarvis FRAS FRHistS is a British author of religious history, politics and theology, and an Anglican clergyman. His books address previously underresearched topics, namely the Independent Sacramental Movement and the introduction of Christianity in Southeast Asia, particularly in Vietnam, Myanmar , and Malaysia.
Go to Profile#1229
Francisco Lacueva
#82262
Overall Influence
1911 - 2005 (94 years)
Francisco Lacueva was a Spanish missionary, writer, theologian, teacher, pastor, and canon. He was born on 28 September 1911 in Sant Celoni. He studied at the Pontifical University of Salamanca. His field of work included dogmatic theology and Christian eschatology. He was coadjutor bishop until 1962 for Tarazona Cathedral. He worked for Strict Baptist Mission in 1969. He married Enid-Beryl Beard. His children are Francesca White, Raquel Shaddick, and Alison Cave.
Go to Profile#1230
Malcolm David Eckel
#45390
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Malcolm David Eckel is Professor of Religion and Director of the Institute for Philosophy and Religion at Boston University, US. Early life and education Eckel received a B.A. from Harvard University, a B.A. and M.A. from Oxford University. While at Oxford, he studied Sanskrit. He received a Ph.D. in the Study of Religion from Harvard in 1980, focusing on the Buddhist traditions of India, Tibet and Southeast Asia.
Go to Profile#1231
Douglas V. Steere
#42343
Overall Influence
1901 - 1995 (94 years)
Douglas Van Steere was an American Quaker ecumenist. Biography He served as a professor of philosophy at Haverford College from 1928 to 1964 and visiting professor of theology at Union Theological Seminary from 1961 to 1962. Steere organized Quaker post-war relief work in Finland, Norway and Poland, was invited to participate as an ecumenical observer in the Second Vatican Council and co-founded the Ecumenical Institute of Spirituality. He authored, edited, translated and wrote introductions for many books on Quakerism, as well as other religions and philosophy.
Go to Profile#1232
Timotheas Hembrom
#84767
Overall Influence
Timotheas Hembrom is an ordained Minister of the Church of North India and an Old Testament Scholar who taught at the Bishop's College, Kolkata, affiliated to the nation's first University, the Senate of Serampore College . As a Biblical scholar, Hembrom is a member of the scholarly Society for Biblical Studies in India, with members from the Protestant, Orthodox, Catholic and Charismatic Church societies. He researched on Santali creation traditions and his work was first published in 1996 was simultaneously reviewed in the Indian Journal of Theology and the Journal of Hindu-Christian Stud...
Go to Profile#1233
Richard M. Davidson
#79596
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Richard M. Davidson is an Old Testament scholar at Andrews University, Michigan, where he is currently the J. N. Andrews Professor of Old Testament Exegesis. Biography Davidson was the president of the Adventist Theological Society from 1996 to 1998. He is married to JoAnn Davidson.
Go to Profile#1234
James F. Linzey
#63585
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
James F. Linzey, M.Div. is an ordained minister in the Southern Baptist Convention and the author of numerous Bibles and books. The chief editor and executive director of the Modern English Version Bible, and the general editor of the New Tyndale Version, he is the author of The United States Space Force Hymn .
Go to Profile#1235
Conrad Hyers
#35739
Overall Influence
1933 - 2013 (80 years)
Merritt Conrad Hyers was an American historian of religion and ordained Presbyterian minister. He taught for many years at Gustavus Adolphus College, and wrote multiple books on humor in religion and on Zen Buddhism.
Go to Profile#1236
Paul Gauthier
#44962
Overall Influence
1914 - 2002 (88 years)
Paul Gauthier was a Catholic theologian and humanist, known best for his contributions to liberation theology. Biography He was born in La Flèche in 1914. At some point he was a professor at a seminary in Dijon. He lived in Nazareth, Palestine, from 1956 to 1967, leaving shortly after the Six Days' War. Gauthier was invited by Georges Hakim, Archbishop of Galilee, to speak to the Second Vatican Council, where he called on the Church to take on a more active role in social justice. While in Palestine, he was part of a group called "Companions of Jesus the Carpenter", providing aid to poverty-stricken people.
Go to Profile#1237
Robert P. Scharlemann
#91692
Overall Influence
1929 - 2013 (84 years)
Robert P. Scharlemann was a radical theologian best known for his theological works on the being of God and as an interpreter of Paul Tillich. Scharlemann taught at the University of Iowa and the University of Virginia.
Go to Profile#1238
Eveline Goodman-Thau
#85540
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (90 years)
Eveline Goodman-Thau was the first female rabbi in Austria, a job she began in 2001. She was born in Vienna. Eveline survived the Holocaust by hiding with her family in the Netherlands. She was privately ordained in Jerusalem in October 2000 by Orthodox rabbi Jonathan Chipman. She later led the liberal Jewish community in Vienna for one year, beginning in 2001.
Go to Profile#1239
Gordon Keddie
#69853
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
Gordon James Keddie was a British-American pastor and theologian of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America educated at George Heriot's School, the University of Aberdeen, the University of Edinburgh, Westminster Theological Seminary, and the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary. He served long pastorates in State College, Pennsylvania and Indianapolis, Indiana. He is best known for his extensive writings including many commentaries on books of the Bible that have been translated in multiple languages. His contributions to the Welwyn commentary series published by Evangelical...
Go to Profile#1240
Jeffrey H. Tigay
#50789
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (83 years)
Jeffrey Howard Tigay is a modern biblical scholar who is best known for the study of Deuteronomy and in his contributions to the Deuteronomy volume of the JPS Torah Commentary . Biography Jeffrey H. Tigay was born in Detroit in 1941. Educated at Columbia University and gaining his B.A. in 1963, he continued toward rabbinic ordination at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America . He earned his Ph.D. in Comparative Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies from Yale University. Tigay taught in the Jewish Studies program at the University of Pennsylvania from 1971 until his retirement in 2010, and is currently the A.M.
Go to Profile#1241
Santiago María Ramírez Ruíz de Dulanto
#47577
Overall Influence
Santiago María Ramírez Ruíz de Dulanto was a Dominican friar, priest, professor of philosophy and theology, and noted 20th century Thomist. He participated in the Second Vatican Council as a peritus.
Go to Profile#1242
Xavier Léon-Dufour
#80309
Overall Influence
1912 - 2007 (95 years)
Xavier Léon-Dufour was a French Jesuit biblical scholar and theologian. He was professor of the Bible at the centre Sèvres and director of collections at éditions du Seuil and éditions du Cerf. In the years 1948-1957 he was a lecturer of the Holy Bible in the Jesuit theological faculty of Enghien in Belgium. From there, he moved to Lyon-Fourvière. He was a consultor of the Pontifical Biblical Commission in Rome and a member of the New Testament study society - Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas. He published in theological magazines: "Recherches de Science Religieuse" and "New Testament Studi...
Go to Profile#1243
Bill J. Leonard
#32565
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Billy Jim Leonard is an American historian of religion, Baptist pastor, teacher and dean. Early life and education Bill Leonard was born on 20 March 1946 in Decatur, Texas to a salesman, Marvin R. Leonard, and his wife Lavelle, who worked as a secretary. He was raised a Baptist. After he turned ten, Leonard moved with his family to Fort Worth, Texas. Leonard earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Texas Wesleyan College
Go to Profile#1244
Margaret Idahosa
#64385
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (81 years)
Margaret Idahosa is a Nigerian preacher, author and the Archbishop of the Church of God Mission International. She is the first African female Archbishop. She is the wife of the late Archbishop Benson Idahosa. She is the Chancellor of Benson Idahosa University. She was conferred with the Officer of the Order of Niger by the federal government of Nigeria in 2008.
Go to Profile#1245
Agostino Marchetto
#61277
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (84 years)
Agostino Marchetto is an Italian prelate of the Catholic Church who worked in the diplomatic service of the Holy See from 1968 to 1999 and then in the Roman Curia until his retirement in 2010. He is regarded as one of the principal historians of the Second Vatican Council.
Go to Profile#1246
Björn Vikström
#99477
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (61 years)
Björn Håkan Vikström is a Finnish prelate who served as Bishop of Borgå between 2009 and 2019. Biography Vikström was born on 17 July 1963 in Turku, Finland. He was ordained a priest in 1988, after which he has served as a pastor in Hanko and in the Matteus Church of Helsinki, as well as a chaplain for 15 years in the parish of Kimito and Västanfjärd. He acquired his doctorate in theology in 2000 from Åbo Akademi University.
Go to Profile#1247
Paul Barnett
#58485
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (89 years)
Paul William Barnett is an Australian Anglican bishop, ancient historian and New Testament scholar. He was the Bishop of North Sydney from 1990 to 2001. He is a prominent historical writer on the rise of Christianity and the historical Jesus. He is currently a fellow in ancient history at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia and a teaching fellow at Regent College, Vancouver, Canada.
Go to Profile#1248
Chester Gillis
#78186
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (73 years)
Chester L. Gillis is the former Dean of Georgetown College, Professor in the Department of Theology, and the founding Director of the Program on the Church and Interreligious Dialogue in the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University. In 2017, Gillis concluded as Dean of Georgetown College and returned to the faculty. In January 2019, he assumed the position of interim provost at Saint Louis University. He left his position as interim provost of Saint Louis University May 2020.
Go to Profile#1249
Benjamin Brown
#45123
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (58 years)
Benjamin Brown is an Israeli professor, researcher of Judaism and Jewish thought, lecturer at the Department of Jewish thought at Hebrew University and a researcher at the Israel Democracy Institute. Brown is known for his studies on Orthodox Judaism, especially the ultra-Orthodox community, from the theological, Jewish-legal and historical perspectives. Among other topics, he was the first to trace the development of the concept Daas Torah and its various usages in the Haredi world. In addition, he published many papers about the Jewish legal ruling system , the Musar movement and the Hasidic movement.
Go to Profile#1250
Roger Corless
#88155
Overall Influence
1938 - 2007 (69 years)
Roger Corless made significant contributions to interfaith dialogue, particularly on the subject Buddhist-Christian dual belonging . He was Professor of Religion at Duke University, and held visiting positions at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Stanford University, Chaminade University of Honolulu, California Institute of Integral Studies, University of California-Berkeley, and the Institute of Buddhist Studies.
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