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,

#151

Stanley Grenz

#14226

Overall Influence

1950 - 2005 (55 years)

Stanley James Grenz was an American Christian theologian and ethicist in the Baptist tradition. Early years Grenz was born on 7 January 1950 in Alpena, Michigan. He studied at the University of Colorado and obtained a Bachelor of Arts in 1973, then he studied theology at the Denver Seminary and obtained a Master of Divinity in 1979. He also studied at University of Munich and obtained a Doctor of Theology, under the supervision of theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg. He was ordained to pastoral ministry on 13 June 1976.

#152

Padmanabh Jaini

#5947

Overall Influence

1923 - 2021 (98 years)

Padmanabh Shrivarma Jaini was an Indian born scholar of Jainism and Buddhism, living in Berkeley, California, United States. He was from a Digambar Jain family; however he was equally familiar with both the Digambara and Svetambara forms of Jainism. He has taught at the Banaras Hindu University, the School of Oriental and African Studies , the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and at the University of California at Berkeley, from which he retired in 1994. Jaini was the author of several books and papers. His best known work is The Jaina Path of Purification . Some of his major articles hav...

#153

Frederick Copleston

Frederick Copleston

#1205

Overall Influence

1907 - 1994 (87 years)

Frederick Charles Copleston was an English Roman Catholic Jesuit priest, philosopher, and historian of philosophy, best known for his influential multi-volume A History of Philosophy . Copleston achieved a degree of popularity in the media for debating the existence of God with Bertrand Russell in a celebrated 1948 BBC broadcast; the following year he debated logical positivism and the meaningfulness of religious language with his friend the analytic philosopher A. J. Ayer.

#154

Miroslav Volf

#9431

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (68 years)

Miroslav Volf is a Croatian Protestant theologian and public intellectual and Henry B. Wright Professor of Theology and director of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture at Yale University. He previously taught at the Evangelical Theological Seminary in his native Osijek, Croatia and Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California .

#155

Richard Foltz

#4735

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (63 years)

Richard Foltz is a Canadian scholar of American origin. He is a specialist in the history of Iranian civilization—what is sometimes referred to as "Greater Iran". He has also been active in the areas of environmental ethics and animal rights.

#156

Joseph Fitzmyer

#13747

Overall Influence

1920 - 2016 (96 years)

Joseph Augustine Fitzmyer was an American Catholic priest and scholar who taught at several American and British universities. He was a member of the Society of Jesus . Fitzmyer was considered an important scholar of biblical studies, particularly the New Testament. He also contributed to the study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and early Jewish literature.

#157

Thomas L. Thompson

#9059

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (85 years)

Thomas L. Thompson is an American-born Danish biblical scholar and theologian. He was professor of theology at the University of Copenhagen from 1993 to 2009. He currently lives in Denmark. Thompson is a part of the minimalist movement known as the Copenhagen School, a group of scholars who hold that the Bible cannot be used as a source to determine the history of ancient Israel, and that "Israel" itself is a problematic concept.

#158

Kosuke Koyama

#21154

Overall Influence

1929 - 2009 (80 years)

Kosuke Koyama was a Japanese Protestant Christian theologian. Biography Koyama was born in Tokyo in 1929, of Christian parents. He later moved to New Jersey in the United States, where he completed his B.D. at Drew Theological Seminary and his Ph.D. at Princeton Theological Seminary, the latter on the interpretation of the Psalms of Martin Luther in 1959.

#159

Donald Wuerl

#6357

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (84 years)

Donald William Wuerl is an American prelate, a cardinal, of the Catholic Church. He served as archbishop of the Archdiocese of Washington from 2006 to 2018. He was elevated by Pope John Paul II to serve as auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Seattle , and bishop of the Diocese of Pittsburgh . Pope Benedict XVI named Wuerl as archbishop of Washington and made him a cardinal in 2010.

#160

Robert John Russell

#9337

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (78 years)

Robert John Russell is founder and Director of the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences . He is also the Ian G. Barbour Professor of Theology and Science in Residence at the Graduate Theological Union . He has written and edited extensively on possible scientific mechanisms of Christian belief.

#161

Gerald O'Collins

#12864

Overall Influence

1932 - Present (92 years)

Gerald Glynn O'Collins is an Australian Jesuit priest and academic. He was a research professor and writer-in-residence at the Jesuit Theological College in Parkville, Victoria, and a research professor in theology at St Mary's University College in Twickenham. For more than three decades, he was professor of systematic and fundamental theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University .

#162

Matthew Fox

#5147

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (84 years)

Timothy James "Matthew " Fox is an American priest and theologian. Formerly a member of the Dominican Order within the Catholic Church, he became a member of the Episcopal Church following his expulsion from the order in 1993.

#163

Tim Keller

#8841

Overall Influence

1950 - 2023 (73 years)

Timothy James Keller was an American Calvinist pastor, preacher, theologian, and Christian apologist. He was the chairman and co-founder of Redeemer City to City, which trains pastors for service around the world. He was also the founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City and the author of The New York Times bestselling books The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith , Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God , and The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism . The prequel for the latter is Making Sense of GOD: An Invitation to the Skeptic...

#164

Krister Stendahl

#16089

Overall Influence

1921 - 2008 (87 years)

Krister Olofson Stendahl was a Swedish theologian, New Testament scholar, and Church of Sweden Bishop of Stockholm. He also served as dean, professor, and professor emeritus at Harvard Divinity School.

#165

Thomas F. Torrance

Thomas F. Torrance

#13795

Overall Influence

1913 - 2007 (94 years)

Thomas Forsyth Torrance , commonly referred to as T. F. Torrance, was a Scottish Protestant theologian and minister. He was a member of the famed Torrance family of theologians. Torrance served for 27 years as professor of Christian dogmatics at New College, in the University of Edinburgh. He is best known for his pioneering work in the study of science and theology, but he is equally respected for his work in systematic theology.

#166

Sallie McFague

#7293

Overall Influence

1933 - 2019 (86 years)

Sallie McFague was an American feminist Christian theologian, best known for her analysis of how metaphor lies at the heart of how Christians may speak about God. She applied this approach, in particular, to ecological issues, writing extensively on care for the Earth as if it were God's "body". She was Distinguished Theologian in Residence at the Vancouver School of Theology, British Columbia, Canada.

#167

Michael R. Licona

Michael R. Licona

#21128

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (63 years)

Michael R. "Mike" Licona is an American New Testament scholar, author, and Christian apologist. He is Professor of New Testament Studies at Houston Christian University, Extraordinary Associate Professor of Theology at North-West University and the director of Risen Jesus, Inc. Licona specializes in the resurrection of Jesus, and in the literary analysis of the Gospels as Greco-Roman biographies.

#168

Larry Hurtado

#8843

Overall Influence

1943 - 2019 (76 years)

Larry Weir Hurtado , was an American New Testament scholar, historian of early Christianity, and Emeritus Professor of New Testament Language, Literature, and Theology at the University of Edinburgh . He was the head of the School of Divinity from 2007 to 2010, and was until August 2011 Director of the Centre for the Study of Christian Origins at the University of Edinburgh.

#169

Dale Allison

#9071

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (69 years)

Dale C. Allison is an American New Testament scholar and historian of Early Christianity. Allison is currently the Richard J. Dearborn Professor of New Testament Studies at Princeton Theological Seminary. Previously , he served as Errett M. Grable Professor of New Testament Exegesis and Early Christianity at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. He is an ordained elder in the Presbyterian Church .

#170

James Tabor

#4713

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (78 years)

James Daniel Tabor is a Biblical scholar and Professor of Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where he has taught since 1989 and served as Chair from 2004–14. He previously held positions at Ambassador College , the University of Notre Dame , and the College of William and Mary . Tabor is the founder and director of the Original Bible Project, a non-profit organisation aimed to produce a re-ordered new translation of the Bible in English. He retired in 2022.

#171

Martin E. Marty

Martin E. Marty

#4809

Overall Influence

1928 - Present (96 years)

Martin Emil Marty is an American Lutheran religious scholar who has written extensively on religion in the United States. Early life and education Marty was born on February 5, 1928, in West Point, Nebraska, and raised in Iowa and Nebraska. He was a member of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod and was educated at Concordia College, Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri. Marty continued with graduate work, receiving a Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of Chicago in 1956. He served as a Lutheran pastor from 1952 to 1967 in the suburbs of Chicago.

#172

David Flusser

#14604

Overall Influence

1917 - 2000 (83 years)

David Flusser was an Israeli professor of Early Christianity and Judaism of the Second Temple Period at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Biography David Flusser was born in Vienna on September 15, 1917. He grew up in Příbram , middle Bohemia, Czechoslovakia and attended the University of Prague. There he met a pastor, Josef Perl, who piqued his interest in Jesus and Christianity. As a young schoolboy his parents had sent him to a Christian school, but in Palestine during the late 1930s he became an observant Jew. Flusser emigrated to Mandatory Palestine, where he completed his doctorate at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1957.

#173

René Laurentin

#10050

Overall Influence

1917 - 2017 (100 years)

Father René Laurentin was a French theologian. He is widely recognized as "one of the world’s foremost students" of Mariology and is the author of numerous books and scholarly articles on topics including Marian apparitions such as Lourdes and Medjugorje; visionaries and mystics including Bernadette Soubirous, Thérèse de Lisieux, Catherine Labouré, and Yvonne Aimée de Malestroit; as well as biblical exegesis, theology, and Vatican II.

#174

Barbara Aland

#16115

Overall Influence

1937 - Present (87 years)

Barbara Aland, née Ehlers is a German theologian and was a professor of New Testament Research and Church History at Westphalian Wilhelms-University of Münster until 2002. Biography After having completed her degree of Theology and Classical Philology in Frankfurt, Marburg and Kiel she received the PhD in 1964 in Frankfurt/Germany. In 1969 she gained her licentiate at the "Oriental Faculty" of Pontificio Istituto Biblico in Rome, Italy. In 1972 she could habilitate in Göttingen about the Syrian gnostic Bardesanes of Edessa. Since 1972 she acted as private lecturer, later on she became profe...

#175

Arnold Fruchtenbaum

#16550

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (81 years)

Arnold Fruchtenbaum is an evangelist and theologian who founded Ariel Ministries, a Messianic Judaic organization dedicated to promoting the idea that Jesus Christ was the Jewish Messiah. Fruchtenbaum was born in Siberia on September 26, 1943. Due to wartime circumstances he and his family were forced to immigrate through Poland, Czechoslovakia, and West Germany before ending up in the United States. After settling in New York at age 13 and being heavily influenced by a Lutheran minister and Chosen People Ministries, Fruchtenbaum became a Messianic Jew. Fruchtenbaum studied at Cerdarville College where he earned a Bachelor of Art in Hebrew and Greek.

#176

Tremper Longman

#12522

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (72 years)

Tremper Longman III is an Old Testament scholar, theologian, professor and author of several books, including 2009 ECPA Christian Book Award winner Dictionary of the Old Testament: Wisdom, Poetry & Writings.

#177

Friedrich Wetter

#11490

Overall Influence

1928 - Present (96 years)

Friedrich Wetter is a German cardinal of the Catholic Church. He was Archbishop of Munich and Freising, Germany, from 1982 to 2007. He was Bishop of Speyer from 1968 to 1982. He has been a cardinal since 1985.

#178

Klaus Klostermaier

#6754

Overall Influence

1933 - Present (91 years)

Klaus K. Klostermaier is a Catholic priest and scholar of Hinduism, Indian history and culture. Life and career Klostermaier obtained a PhD in philosophy from the Gregorian University in Rome in 1961, and another in "Ancient Indian History and Culture" from the University of Bombay in 1969.

#179

R. Kent Hughes

#16680

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (82 years)

R. Kent Hughes is the former senior pastor of College Church in Wheaton, Illinois, United States. Hughes is the author of numerous books, including the best-selling Disciplines of a Godly Man. He is also editor and contributor for the projected 50-volume Preaching the Word series, including Mark: Jesus, Servant and Savior, which received the ECPA Gold Medallion Book Award for best commentary in 1990. Hughes served as senior pastor of College Church for 27 years and retired at the end of 2006. He moved to Wheaton from California, where he pastored two churches. He holds a BA from Whittier College, an M.Div.

#180

Karel Werner

#7694

Overall Influence

1925 - 2019 (94 years)

Karel Werner was an indologist, orientalist, religious studies scholar, and philosopher of religion born in Jemnice in what is now the Czech Republic. Life Werner has described his childhood in the small town in south Moravia as idyllic. His father was a ‘master-baker’ and ran a small confectionery shop, and his mother was originally a qualified cook. The idyll ended when in 1933 their house was sold in an auction as a result of arrears in mortgage repayments during the great depression.

#181

James B. Jordan

James B. Jordan

#15034

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (75 years)

James Burrell Jordan is an American Protestant theologian and author. He is the director of Biblical Horizons ministries, an organisation in Niceville, Florida that publishes books, essays and other media dealing with Bible commentary, Biblical theology, and liturgy. It adheres to biblical absolutism including Young Earth Creationism and is committed to the concept of biblical theocracy.

#182

John Mbiti

#7661

Overall Influence

1931 - 2019 (88 years)

John Samuel Mbiti was a Kenyan-born Christian philosopher and writer. He was an ordained Anglican priest, and is considered "the father of modern African theology". Early life John Mbiti was born on 30 November 1931 in Mulango, Kitui County, eastern Kenya. His parents were two farmers, Samuel Mutuvi Ngaangi and Valesi Mbandi Kiimba; He was one of six children and was raised in a strong Christian environment. His Christian upbringing encouraged his educational journey through the African Inland Church. He attended Alliance High School in Nairobi and continued his education at University College of Makerere where he graduated in 1953.

#183

David M. O'Connell

#12985

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (69 years)

David Michael O'Connell is an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church, serving as the bishop of the Diocese of Trenton in New Jersey since 2010. He is a member of the Congregation of the Mission and a past president of the Catholic University of America.

#184

Robert Sungenis

#15022

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (69 years)

Robert A. Sungenis is an American Catholic apologist and advocate of the pseudoscientific belief that the Earth is the center of the universe. He has made statements about Jews and Judaism which have been criticized as being antisemitic, which he denies. Sungenis is a member of the Kolbe Center for the Study of Creation, a Catholic Young Earth creationist group.

#185

Antje Jackelén

#18378

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (69 years)

Antje Jackelén is archbishop emerita and primate emerita of the Church of Sweden, the national church. On 15 October 2013, she was elected the 70th Archbishop of Uppsala and formally received through a service in Uppsala Cathedral on 15 June 2014, making her Sweden's first foreign-born archbishop since the 12th century, and the first female archbishop.

#186

Tomáš Halík

#9018

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Tomáš Halík is a Czech Catholic priest, philosopher, and theologian. He is a professor of sociology at the Charles University in Prague, pastor of the Academic Parish by St. Salvator Church in Prague, and president of the Czech Christian Academy.

#187

Richard Elliott Friedman

#12105

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (78 years)

Richard Elliott Friedman is an American biblical scholar, theologian, and translator who currently serves as the Ann and Jay Davis Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Georgia. Friedman was born in Rochester, New York. He attended the University of Miami , the Jewish Theological Seminary , and Harvard University . He was the Katzin Professor of Jewish Civilization: Hebrew Bible; Near Eastern Languages and Literature at the University of California, San Diego, from 1994 until 2006, whereupon he joined the faculty of the University of Georgia's Religion Department, where he is currently the Ann and Jay Davis Professor of Jewish Studies.

#188

Hugh Nibley

#5339

Overall Influence

1910 - 2005 (95 years)

Hugh Winder Nibley was an American scholar and member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who was a professor at Brigham Young University for nearly 50 years. He was a prolific author, and wrote apologetic works supporting the archaeological, linguistic, and historical claims of Joseph Smith. He was a member of the LDS Church, and wrote and lectured on LDS scripture and doctrinal topics, publishing many articles in the LDS Church magazines.

#189

Darrell L. Bock

#18522

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (71 years)

Darrell L. Bock is an American evangelical New Testament scholar. He is executive director of Cultural Engagement at The Hendricks Center and Senior Research Professor of New Testament studies at Dallas Theological Seminary in Dallas, Texas, United States. Bock received his PhD from Scotland's University of Aberdeen. His supervisor was I. Howard Marshall. Harold Hoehner was an influence in his NT development, as were Martin Hengel and Otto Betz as he was a Humboldt scholar at Tübingen University multiple years.

#190

Marko Rupnik

#15942

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (70 years)

Marko Ivan Rupnik is a Slovenian Catholic priest, theologian, mosaic artist, and former Jesuit. Among the churches he has decorated around the world are the Saint John Paul II National Shrine in Washington D.C., the Redemptoris Mater Chapel in the Vatican's Apostolic Palace, the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes, the Sanctuary of Fátima, the Sanctuary of Saint Pio of Pietrelcina, the Almudena Cathedral in Madrid. He was the director of Centro Aletti in Rome and was a theological student of Tomáš Špidlík.

#191

David Jeremiah

#6906

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (83 years)

David Jeremiah is an American evangelical Christian author, founder of Turning Point Radio and Television Ministries and senior pastor of Shadow Mountain Community Church, a Southern Baptist megachurch in El Cajon, California, a suburb of San Diego.

#192

Bernard Ramm

#11592

Overall Influence

1916 - 1992 (76 years)

Bernard L. Ramm was a Baptist theologian and apologist within the broad evangelical tradition. He wrote prolifically on topics concerned with biblical hermeneutics, religion and science, Christology, and apologetics. The hermeneutical principles presented in his 1956 book Protestant Biblical Interpretation influenced a wide spectrum of Baptist theologians. During the 1970s he was widely regarded as a leading evangelical theologian as well known as Carl F.H. Henry. His equally celebrated and criticized 1954 book The Christian View of Science and Scripture was the theme of a 1979 issue of th...

#193

Eberhard Jüngel

#9508

Overall Influence

1934 - 2021 (87 years)

Eberhard Jüngel was a German Lutheran theologian. He was Emeritus Professor of Systematic Theology and the Philosophy of Religion at the Faculty of Protestant Theology of the University of Tübingen.

#194

Thomas R. Schreiner

#15848

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (70 years)

Thomas R. Schreiner is an American Reformed Baptist New Testament scholar. He is the James Buchanan Harrison Professor of New Testament Interpretation at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He previously taught at Bethel University and Azusa Pacific University. He is also co-chairman of the Christian Standard Bible's Translation Oversight Committee and is the New Testament editor of the ESV Study Bible. Schreiner has degrees from Western Oregon University, Western Seminary, and Fuller Theological Seminary.

#195

Daniel J. Harrington

#12605

Overall Influence

1940 - 2014 (74 years)

Daniel J. Harrington, S.J. , was an American academic and Jesuit priest who served as professor of New Testament and chair of the Biblical Studies department at Boston College School of Theology and Ministry .

#196

C. S. Song

#21148

Overall Influence

1929 - Present (95 years)

Choan-Seng Song is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Theology and Asian Cultures at the Pacific School of Religion. Biography Song was born into a Presbyterian family in Tainan, and received his early education while Taiwan was under Japanese rule. He studied at National Taiwan University , the University of Edinburgh and Union Theological Seminary, where he received his PhD in 1965. Song's dissertation was "The Relation of Divine Revelation and Man's Religion in the Theologies of Karl Barth and Paul Tillich." Song was principal of Tainan Theological College and, later, president of t...

#197

Paul Helm

#11156

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (84 years)

Paul Helm is a Reformed British philosopher and theologian. Helm was born in 1940. He taught at Regent College, having served as the first incumbent of the J.I. Packer Chair of Theology there from 2001 to 2005. He also served as Professor of Theology at Highland Theological College, Scotland, from 2007 to 2010.

#198

Thomas Berry

#4223

Overall Influence

1914 - 2009 (95 years)

Thomas Berry, CP was a Catholic priest, cultural historian, and scholar of the world's religions, especially Asian traditions. Later, as he studied Earth history and evolution, he called himself a "geologian".

#199

Shmuley Boteach

Shmuley Boteach

#2770

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (58 years)

Jacob Shmuel Boteach , commonly known as Shmuley Boteach , is an American rabbi, author, and television host. He is the author of 31 books, including the best-seller Kosher Sex: A Recipe for Passion and Intimacy and Kosher Jesus . For two seasons, he hosted the prime-time reality television series Shalom in the Home, which was one of the highest-rated shows on TLC. His outspokenness has earned him both praise and criticism; he has been described as one of the most influential Jews in the United States and the world.

#200

Luis Antonio Tagle

Luis Antonio Tagle

#8466

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (67 years)

Luis Antonio Gokim Tagle is a Filipino prelate of the Catholic Church currently serving as the Pro-Prefect for the Section of Evangelization of Dicastery for Evangelization since June 5, 2022, and as the President of Interdicasterial Commission for Consecrated Religious since December 8, 2019. He was the 32nd Archbishop of Manila from 2011 to 2019. Tagle is the Cardinal-Bishop of San Felice da Cantalice a Centocelle and also serves as the President of the Catholic Biblical Federation, Grand Chancellor of the Pontifical Urbaniana University, and as a member of various departments and dicaste...

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