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Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines

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List of the most influential people in Religious Studies,

#1501

Peder Borgen

#73303

Overall Influence

1928 - 2023 (95 years)

Peder Johan Borgen was a Norwegian Methodist minister, has a Doctorate in Theology, and was a professor at Norwegian University of Science and Technology. He was considered to be a pioneer "within the theological scientific community in Norway and was the first Methodist and the first member of a Norwegian Free Church who took the theological doctorate at a Norwegian university."

#1502

Petros Vassiliadis

Petros Vassiliadis

#102637

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (79 years)

Petros B. Vassiliadis is a Greek biblical scholar and Professor Emeritus of the Department of Theology of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki , honorary president of the Center of Ecumenical, Missiological and Environmental Studies “Metropolitan Panteleimon Papageorgiou” and the World Conference of Associations and Theological Institutions and Educators .

#1503

Susan Gillingham

#96310

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (73 years)

Susan E. Gillingham is a British theologian, academic, and Anglican deacon. She specialises in the Hebrew Bible, the Psalms, and Jewish history from the Israelites to the Second Temple. She has been Fellow and Tutor in theology at Worcester College, Oxford since 1995, and was Professor of the Hebrew Bible at the University of Oxford from 2014 to 2019. She is the first British woman to have been awarded a Doctor of Divinity degree by the University of Oxford.

#1504

Marian Hillar

#58050

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (86 years)

Marian Hillar is an American philosopher, theologian, linguist, and scientist. He is a recognized authority on Michael Servetus and together with classicist and political theorist, C. A. Hoffman, translated the major works of Michael Servetus from Latin into English for the first time. He identified the radical search for truth and the right for freedom of conscience as Servetus' main legacies, rather than his theology and scientific discovery. He studied the influence of Servetus in the world and the development and ideas of the Socinian movement in the 16th and 17th centuries, precursors of the Enlightenment and modern era.

#1505

Naomi Seidman

#73126

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (64 years)

Naomi Seidman is Chancellor Jackman Professor in the Arts at the University of Toronto, and was previously Koret Professor of Jewish Culture and the Director of the Richard S. Dinner Center for Jewish Studies at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. In 2016, she received a Guggenheim Fellowship.

#1506

Gerard Loughlin

#59585

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Gerard Patrick Loughlin is an English Roman Catholic theologian and religious scholar. He is Professor of Theology and Religion at the University of Durham, England. He is the author of Telling God's Story: Bible Church and Narrative Theology and Alien Sex: The Body and Desire in Cinema and Theology .

#1507

Barry Chant

#74225

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (86 years)

Barry Mostyn Chant is an Australian academic, pentecostal pastor and author. His most significant contribution to the Pentecostal movement in Australia was as its primary historian. Heart of Fire: The story of Australian Pentecostalism was published by the House of Tabor in 1973, a publishing company attached to Tabor College Australia, in Adelaide, which Chant founded and led as principal.

#1508

Mary Clemente Davlin

#39334

Overall Influence

1929 - 2017 (88 years)

Mary Clemente Davlin was a Sinsinawa Dominican Sister, an advocate for diversity in higher education, and a noted scholar of medieval studies, particularly the allegorical poem Piers Plowman. Early life and education Marguerite "Marge" Davlin was born on Chicago's South Side to Mary Margaret Ryan Davlin and John Joseph Davlin. She was known as Marge all her life. In Chicago she attended St. Philip Neri elementary school and Aquinas Dominican high school. She earned a bachelor's degree at Rosary College and a master's degree at the University of Wisconsin Madison, after which she studied Italian and violin at the Pius XII Institute in Florence, Italy.

#1509

Frank Senn

#92890

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (81 years)

Frank Colvin Senn is an American liturgist and pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. He served as pastor of five congregations: Gloria Dei in South Bend, Indiana , Fenner Memorial in Louisville, Kentucky , Christ the Mediator in Chicago, Illinois , Holy Spirit in Lincolnshire, Illinois , and Immanuel in Evanston, Illinois .

#1510

Dave Armstrong

#78041

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (66 years)

Dave Armstrong is an American Catholic apologist, author, and blogger. His blog, which includes material from his previous website, contains more than 2500 articles defending Christianity. It is award-winning and has had over two million visitors. He has written over 18 books, including The Catholic Answer Bible.

#1511

Iakovos Garmatis

Iakovos Garmatis

#85898

Overall Influence

1928 - 2017 (89 years)

Metropolitan Iakovos of Chicago was Metropolitan of Chicago under the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople until his death on June 2, 2017. Biography Garmatis began his higher education in Athens, Greece, and continued his studies and service in the Boston area. He was appointed Archdiocesan Vicar of the Diocese of Detroit by Archbishop Iakovos in February 1968. One year later, he was elevated to the rank of Bishop by the Holy See of Constantinople. He was consecrated Bishop of Apameia on Christmas Day of 1969, and appointed to the Diocese of Detroit as Bishop of that district.

#1512

David Tacey

#22574

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (71 years)

David Tacey is an Australian public intellectual, writer and interdisciplinary scholar. He is Emeritus Professor of Literature at La Trobe University in Melbourne and Research Professor at the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture in Canberra.

#1513

Carol Rittner

#57341

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (81 years)

Carol Rittner is an American nun and Holocaust historian. She is a Distinguished Emerita Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies and Dr. Marsha Raticoff Grossman Professor of Holocaust Studies at Stockton University.

#1514

Joseph S. O'Leary

#49346

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (75 years)

Joseph Stephen O’Leary is an Irish Roman Catholic theologian. Born in Cork, 1949, he studied literature and theology at Maynooth College . He also studied at the Gregorian University, Rome and in Paris . Ordained for the Diocese of Cork and Ross in 1973, he was a chaplain at University College Cork . He taught theology at the University of Notre Dame and Duquesne University before moving to Japan in August, 1983. He worked as a researcher at the Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture, Nanzan University, Nagoya , where he later held the Roche Chair for Interreligious Research . He taught...

#1515

Ignatius Anthony Catanello

#81024

Overall Influence

1938 - 2013 (75 years)

Ignatius Anthony Catanello was an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. From 1994 to 2010 he served as an auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Brooklyn. Early life One of two children, Catanello was born in Brooklyn, New York, July 23, 1938 to Nicholas Catanello and Mary DeFalco. He attended Most Holy Trinity School and High School in Williamsburg. After high school he entered the novitiate of the Order of Augustinian Recollects in Kansas City, Kansas, and then spent a year in their seminary before deciding to pursue the life of a secular priest. He then returned to New York for studies at Cathedral College, the college-level seminary of the Brooklyn Diocese.

#1516

Oto Mádr

#90578

Overall Influence

1917 - 2011 (94 years)

Mons. ThDr. Oto Mádr, dr. h. c. was a Czech Roman Catholic priest, theologian, university professor, long-time political prisoner and the chief editor of Theological Texts . Life Mádr studied at the Archbishop's high school in the Bubeneč district of Prague, before continuing his education at the Charles University School of Theology . He was ordained as a priest in 1942 and began as a parish priest. After the end of World War II, he continued his study of moral theology at the Gregorian University in Rome . He then returned to Czechoslovakia, where he was awarded the title of Doctor of Theology for his study on the works of Francisco Suárez.

#1517

Raija Sollamo

#104296

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (82 years)

Raija Tellervo Sollamo is a Finnish theologian and professor emerita of Biblical Languages in the Faculty of Theology, University of Helsinki. She was the first female professor in the field of theology in Finland. Between 1998 and 2003, Sollamo was vice-rector of the University of Helsinki, thereby becoming the first female vice-rector in Finland. From 2007 to 2010, she was president of The International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament .

#1518

Ruth Padilla DeBorst

#105351

Overall Influence

Ruth Padilla DeBorst is a Latin American evangelical theologian affiliated with the Latin American Theological Fellowship and based in Costa Rica. Biography Padilla DeBorst was born in Colombia as the eldest daughter of an American mother, Catharine Feser Padilla, and an Ecuadorian father, the theologian René Padilla. She attended high school and university in Argentina, receiving her B.Ed. at the Instituto Nacional Superior en Lenguas Vivas in 1984, an M.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies at Wheaton College in 1987, and a PhD in theology from Boston University in 2016, under the supervision of Dana L.

#1519

Musa Dube

#96819

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (60 years)

Musa W. Dube , also known as Musa Wenkosi Dube Shomanah, is a Botswanan feminist theologian and Professor of New Testament at the Candler School of Theology, known for her work in postcolonial biblical scholarship.

#1520

Robert P. Imbelli

#98545

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (85 years)

Rev. Robert P. Imbelli is a Christian theologian and Roman Catholic priest of the Archdiocese of New York. Imbelli is an associate professor emeritus of theology at Boston College in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, where he taught from 1986 to 2014. He was the director of the Institute of Religious Education and Pastoral Ministry at Boston College from 1986 to 1993. He previously taught theology at the New York Archdiocesan Seminary, St. Joseph's Seminary at Dunwoodie and at the Maryknoll School of Theology in Ossining, New York . While teaching in Boston, Imbelli served at Sacred Heart Church...

#1521

Guillaume Marie van Zuylen

#90397

Overall Influence

1910 - 2004 (94 years)

Gulielmus Maria van Zuylen was the 89th bishop of the diocese of Liège from 1961 to 1986. Lifecycle Van Zuylen was the grandson of Senator Guillaume van Zuylen , and the fourth of the eight children of Baron Joseph van Zuylen and Angèle van Caloen de Basseghem . His father also became a senator, as well as a provincial councilor and mayor of Richelle and Argenteau. His mother was the daughter of Camille van Caloen de Basseghem, mayor of Varsenare and Marie-Louise de Bie de Westvoorde, daughter of the mayor of Sint-Kruis, Jules de Bie de Westvoorde.

#1522

Rosemary Haughton

#65740

Overall Influence

1927 - Present (97 years)

Rosemary Elena Konradin Haughton is a British-born Catholic lay theologian, who also resided in the United States over a period of 30 years. The daughter of Peter Luling and Sylvia Thompson Luling, she had two sisters, Dr. Virginia Luling , and Elizabeth Dooley . She attended the Farnham Girls' Grammar School, Queen's College, London, and the Slade School of Art. She married Algernon Haughton in 1948; the couple had 12 children including 2 foster children.[2] Algy Haughton died in Edinburgh in 2008.

#1523

Stanley N. Gundry

#86053

Overall Influence

1937 - Present (87 years)

Stanley Norman Gundry is an American evangelical theologian, seminary professor, publisher, and author. He served as series editor for the Zondervan "Counterpoints" series, which present multiple views on a variety of theological topics.

#1524

Kune Biezeveld

#77047

Overall Influence

1948 - 2008 (60 years)

Kunegonda Elizabeth Biezeveld was a Dutch theologian. She was a member of the Dutch Reformed Church . Biezeveld studied theology at Leiden University. Afterwards she was a minister in Zandvoort, Voorthuizen and in a hospital in Blaricum.

#1525

Ola Tjørhom

#114927

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (71 years)

Ola Tjørhom is a Norwegian former Lutheran professor of theology who converted to Roman Catholicism on 25 January 2003. Formerly Tjørhom belonged to the Norwegian School of Mission and Theology in Stavanger and was active in ecumenical activities. Tjørhom's conversion has occasioned attention not only in his native country but also in the ecumenical movement all over the world.

#1526

Alvin J. Reines

#81854

Overall Influence

1926 - 2004 (78 years)

Alvin J. Reines was an American Reform rabbi, philosopher and theologian. He was professor of Philosophy and Theology at Hebrew Union College. He is known for his pluralistic religious philosophy and theology of polydoxy. Polydoxy emphasizes individual autonomy and religious freedom. For Reines religious believers should be free to choose which beliefs and practices they adopt whilst respecting the right of other religious believer to do the same. Rather than there being one correct conception of God there are many.

#1527

Joshua Berman

#77803

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (60 years)

Joshua Berman is an Orthodox rabbi and professor of bible at Bar-Ilan University. He is known for his views on the history of Jewish belief, and on biblical source criticism, arguing that "knowledge of the cultural context of the ancient Near East" is required in understanding the scriptures.

#1528

Tam Shek-wing

#101361

Overall Influence

1935 - Present (89 years)

Tam Shek-wing , pen name Wong Ting Tze or Wang Tingzhi , is a Buddhist scholar, painter, poet, writer and social critic, the founder of the Sino-Tibetan Buddhist Studies Association in North America, and a professor at Renmin University of China.

#1529

Laurel C. Schneider

#65233

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (63 years)

Laurel C. Schneider is an American theologian and a professor of Religion and Culture as well as a professor of Religious Studies at Vanderbilt University. Schneider is known for her theological analysis of images of God in relation to questions of social justice and liberation. Her work has contributed to the development of a theological framework, using concepts like multiplicity and polydoxy, as an alternative to orthodoxy and more traditional approaches to religious belief and theological reflection. Schneider's work focuses on collaborative models of thinking and publishing. She has wor...

#1530

Sören Dalevi

#105020

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (55 years)

Sören Dalevi , is a Swedish prelate and theologian. Since 2012 he has been a lecturer in religious studies at Karlstad University. In 2016 he was elected as Bishop of Karlstad. Biography Sören Dalevi was ordained as a priest in 1996, after which he became vicar in the parish of Grums. He was the founder of youth work in the Diocese of Karlstad between 1997 and 2000 and committees in the parish of Norrstrands in Karlstad between 2000 and 2003. He then pursued research studies at Karlstad University. Between 2008 and 2012 Dalevi was a member of the school board at Geijerskolan. Dalevi's research...

#1531

Rosemary Goldie

#68620

Overall Influence

1916 - 2010 (94 years)

Rosemary Goldie AO was an Australian Catholic theologian. Goldie was the first woman to serve in an executive role in the Roman Curia; she was undersecretary of the Pontifical Council for the Laity from 1967 until 1976. She also served as an auditor during the Second Vatican Council.

#1532

Sahak II Mashalian

#38061

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (62 years)

Archbishop Sahag II Mashalian , also known as Sahak Mashalyan in Eastern Armenian transliteration became the 85th Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople in 2019. The Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople is one of the four Sees of Armenian Apostolic Church and has an autocephalous status, accepting, on the other hand, spiritual supremacy of the Catholicos of Armenia and of all Armenians in Holy Echmiadzin.

#1533

Elazar Hurvitz

#88467

Overall Influence

Elazar Hurvitz is an academic scholar in the field of Talmudic studies. Biography He teaches at Yeshiva College and the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies, both schools of Yeshiva University. Hurvitz is Professor of Biblical and Talmudic Literature, and holds the Dr. Samuel Belkin Chair in Judaic Studies. He is also an ordained rabbi. In addition, Prof. Hurvitz is the creator and curator of the Eli Michael Microfilm Center for Genizah Studies on the fourth floor of Yeshiva University's library.

#1534

Helga Weippert

#74277

Overall Influence

1943 - 2019 (76 years)

Helga Weippert was a German scholar of the Old Testament. Life Helga Klumpp was born and raised in Stuttgart, Germany and attended local schools before pursuing the study of protestant theology and learning Hebrew in Basel, Switzerland. She earned her master's degree in Göttingen and then received her doctorate in 1971 from the University of Basel under the direction of Hans Joachim Stoebe on The Prose Speeches of the Book of Jeremiah.

#1535

Alon Goshen-Gottstein

#90333

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (68 years)

Alon Goshen-Gottstein is a scholar of Jewish studies and a theoretician and activist in the domain of interfaith dialogue. He is founder and director of the Elijah Interfaith Institute since 1997. He specializes in bridging the theological and academic dimension with a variety of practical initiatives, especially involving world religious leadership.

#1536

Gabriel Fackre

#99602

Overall Influence

1926 - 2018 (92 years)

Gabriel Joseph Fackre was an American theologian and Abbot Professor of Christian Theology Emeritus at Andover Newton Theological School in Newton, Massachusetts . He was on the school's faculty for 25 years before retiring in 1996. Previous to that he was Professor of Theology and Culture at Lancaster Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania, teaching there from 1961 through 1970. Fackre has also served as visiting professor or held lectureships at 40 universities, colleges, and seminaries. His papers are housed in Special Collections at Princeton Theological Seminary Libraries, Princeton, New J...

#1537

Jack P. Lewis

#45301

Overall Influence

1919 - 2018 (99 years)

Jack Pearl Lewis was an American Bible scholar affiliated with the Churches of Christ. He earned a Ph.D. in New Testament from Harvard University in 1953 and a Ph.D. in Old Testament from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1962. For 50 years, Lewis taught Bible and biblical languages first at Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas, and then at Harding School of Theology in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was named professor emeritus upon his retirement. He authored over 223 articles in scholarly and church publications and published more than twenty-five books. He died in Memp...

#1538

Markus Meckel

#84886

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (72 years)

Markus Meckel is a German theologian and politician. He was the penultimate foreign minister of the GDR and a member of the German Bundestag. Early life Markus Meckel was born on 18 August 1952 in Müncheberg, Brandenburg. He had to leave high school in 1969 for political reasons. From 1969 to 1971, he studied at Kirchenoberseminar Hermannswerder, a boarding school operated by the church whose diploma allowed its students to study theology or sacred music only. From 1971 to 1978, Meckel studied theology in Naumburg and Berlin.

#1539

Hedley Sparks

#98358

Overall Influence

1908 - 1996 (88 years)

Hedley Frederick Davis Sparks, was a British biblical scholar and Church of England priest. From 1946 to 1952, he was Cadbury Professor of Theology at the University of Birmingham. From 1952 to 1976, he was Oriel Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture at the University of Oxford.

#1540

Eric D. Huntsman

Eric D. Huntsman

#91368

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (24 years)

Eric Dennis Huntsman is a religion professor at Brigham Young University and was coordinator of the university's ancient near eastern studies program from 2012-2022. He is currently the academic director of the BYU Jerusalem Center

#1541

Alan Mittleman

#61342

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (71 years)

Alan Mittleman is a professor of Jewish philosophy at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. Education Mittleman received his BA from Brandeis University and his MA and PhD from Temple University.

#1542

Mary Tanner

#103561

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (86 years)

Dame Mary Elizabeth Tanner, DBE is a British academic specialising in the Old Testament. She was European President of the World Council of Churches from 2006 to 2013 and has been a member of the WCC Faith and Order Commission since 1974, serving as its moderator from 1991 to 1998.

#1543

Alastair Logan

#90168

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (24 years)

Alastair Logan is senior lecturer at the University of Exeter in England. He has been at the university since 1972 and is the longest standing member of its department of theology. Dr Logan is a Christian scholar and the chair EFC at the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter in Exeter. He is known for his work regarding Gnosticism in early Christianity. His best-known published work is Gnostic Truth, Christian Heresy, in which he works to redact the Gnostic movement in early Christianity. Logan ties the Gnostic movement to the worship of Seth and contends that the main thrust of the different facti...

#1544

David Wilkinson

#70500

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (61 years)

David Adam Wilkinson, FRAS is a British Methodist minister, theologian, astrophysicist and academic. He is the current Principal of St John's College, Durham, and a professor in the Department of Theology and Religion at Durham University. He is the author of several books on the relationship between science and religion, and a regular contributor to Thought for the Day on BBC Radio 4. He has a PhD in astrophysics and is a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society.

#1545

Gunther Plaut

#38795

Overall Influence

1912 - 2012 (100 years)

Wolf Gunther Plaut, was an American Reform rabbi and writer who was based in Canada. Plaut was the rabbi of Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto for several decades and since 1978 was its senior scholar.

#1546

Spencer J. Palmer

#53218

Overall Influence

1927 - 2000 (73 years)

Spencer John Palmer was a chronicler of the development of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Asia as well as a major player in these developments. He was a historian of Korea, a scholar of comparative world religions, and wrote many books on these and related topics. He was a key figure in the second generation of Korean studies scholars in the United States.

#1547

Vincent Miceli

#86139

Overall Influence

1915 - 1991 (76 years)

Vincent Peter Miceli, S.J. was a Catholic priest, theologian, and philosopher. Miceli was born in New York City, USA, in 1915, the ninth of ten children of Italian immigrants. While attending Cathedral High School and maintaining a 95.5 average he worked six days a week from 3-10pm delivering books. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1936 to pursue his studies and was ordained a priest in 1949. Fr Miceli received his STL from St Louis University in 1950 and his PhD from Fordham University in 1961. His doctoral dissertation was on the French Catholic existentialist, Gabriel Marcel.

#1548

Christian Gostečnik

#61866

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (69 years)

Christian Gostečnik, OFM is a Slovenian Roman Catholic priest of the Franciscan Order of Friars Minor, theologian, clinical psychologist and marriage-and-family therapist. He was dean of Faculty of Theology , while currently he is a director of Franciscan Family Institute in Ljubljana .

#1549

Jean-Yves Leloup

#57836

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Jean-Yves Leloup is a French theologian, writer, translator of Greek and Coptic language texts, born in 1950 in Angers. He is the author of over ninety books in French, some translated into other languages, including English, German, Spanish and Portuguese.The primary subject of his writings is Christian spirituality.

#1550

Wolf Liebeschuetz

#21845

Overall Influence

1927 - 2022 (95 years)

John Hugo Wolfgang Gideon Liebeschuetz was a German-born British historian who specialized in late antiquity. Early life John Hugo Wolfgang Gideon Liebeschuetz was born in Hamburg on 22 June 1927, the son of historian Hans Liebeschuetz and physician Rahel Plaut. His father was a prominent medievalist who taught at the University of Hamburg. The family had been wealthy, having inherited a large fortune from Wolf's great-grandfather Brach, who amassed wealth trading in Texas and Mexico though much was lost in the German inflation. The Liebeschuetz family was Jewish, and were subjected to increasing persecution following the Adolf Hitler's seizure of power by the Nazis.

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