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,

#2451

Benjamin Wold

#178738

Overall Influence

1974 - Present (50 years)

Benjamin Wold is currently Professor of Ancient Judaism and Christianity at Trinity College, Dublin, School of Religion . Publications Women, Men and Angels: Allusions to Genesis Creation Traditions in Musar leMevin . See 4QInstruction4QInstruction: Divisions and Hierarchies Memory and Remembrance in the Bible and Antiquity , with Loren Stuckenbruck and Stephen Barton. Das Böse, der Teufel und Dämonen - Evil, the Devil and Demons , with Jan Dochhorn and Susanne Rudnig-Zelt.

#2452

Gerrit Bos

#183831

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Gerrit Bos is professor emeritus of Jewish studies. Life Gerrit Bos studied classical languages and theology at the Utrecht University, Semitic languages and literature at the University of Amsterdam , BA , Yiddish with Leib Fuks , Jewish and Islamic Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem , the Talmud at the Center for Conservative Judaism and Hebrew and Arabic Language and Literature at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam , MA 1985, Master's thesis: Al-Farabi’s Al-Mahut ha-Nefesh ; Dr. phil. 1989, dissertation: The Treatise of Qusta ibn Luqa on the Regimen During the Pilgrimage to Mec...

#2453

Max King

#178876

Overall Influence

1930 - Present (94 years)

Max R. King was the founder of the school of thought known as "transmillennialism". King was a minister in the Churches of Christ for 40 years before developing Transmillennialism. King pioneered a field of theology that he termed "covenant eschatology" which most call full preterism. Within fundamentalist and conservative evangelical contexts, he contended that biblical eschatology was not related to the end of the space-time universe, but to the transition of the Old Covenant to the New Covenant. King offered a unique interpretation concerning the millennium as found in Revelation 20 as pertaining to the forty-year period from 30-70 AD.

#2454

Frank Crüsemann

#155787

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (86 years)

Frank Crüsemann is a German Old Testament scholar, biblical critic, and emeritus professor at Bethel Church College from 1980 to 2004. He is known for his publications on the Torah, Elijah and the social history of the Old Testament, and his participation in Christian–Jewish reconciliation and the German Evangelical Church Assembly.

#2455

Ilia Jinjolava

#187635

Overall Influence

1990 - Present (34 years)

Ilia Jinjolava is a Georgian theologian and Orthodox presbyter. Biography llia Jinjolava completed his undergraduate studies at Tbilisi Theological Seminary, Tbilisi, in 2011. He continued studying theology in Germany at the Catholic University of Eichstätt and Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and later at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, in Greece. He received his MAS in Ecumenical Studies from the Bossey Ecumenical Institute in 2016 and was tonsured a monk in 2017. He is currently a doctoral candidate at the Institute of Orthodox Theology at the LMU Munich. Since 2017 he has ...

#2456

Kenneth Baker

#131078

Overall Influence

1929 - Present (95 years)

Fr. Kenneth Baker, S.J. is a Roman Catholic priest in the Society of Jesus. Besides his pastoral duties as a priest he has served as a professor of theology and a university president. He has also worked to bring the message of the Roman Catholic Church into more forms of communication media, most notably as editor-in-chief in the magazine the Homiletic and Pastoral Review which has been called "one of the most important magazines for priests in the English speaking world".

#2457

Edward A. Synan

#178423

Overall Influence

1918 - 1997 (79 years)

Edward Aloysius Synan was a philosopher, theologian, and professor at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies. In addition to authoring and editing several books, Synan published over eighty journal articles on subjects ranging from early patristics to late scholasticism.

#2458

Douglas A. Hicks

#85098

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (57 years)

Douglas A. Hicks is president of Davidson College and a religion and economics scholar. Hicks became the 19th president of Davidson College on August 1, 2022. He previously served as Dean of Oxford College of Emory University and the Charles R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Religion at Emory. Before that, he was Professor of Religion and Senior Advisor for Academic Initiatives at Colgate University in Hamilton NY. . He served as Colgate's Provost and Dean of the Faculty from 2012 through 2015. From 1998 through 2012, Hicks was Professor of Leadership Studies and Religion at the Jepson School of Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond.

#2459

Roger Wilson

#143034

Overall Influence

1905 - 2002 (97 years)

Roger Plumpton Wilson was Bishop of Wakefield, and later Chichester, in the mid 20th century. Born into an ecclesiastical family, he was educated at Winchester College and Keble College, Oxford; made deacon in Advent 1935 , by Albert David, Bishop of Liverpool, at Prescot Parish Church; and ordained priest the following Advent , by Herbert Gresford Jones, Bishop of Warrington, at Liverpool Cathedral. After curacies at St Paul's, Princes Park, Liverpool, and St John's, Smith Square, he was vicar of South Shore, Blackpool, and archdeacon of Nottingham before his appointment to the episcopate. ...

#2460

Sang-Gyoo Lee

#184171

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (72 years)

Sang-Gyoo Lee is a South Korean theologian and an honorary professor of the department of church history at Kosin University. He contributed to the discovery of historical documents of Korean church and is highly regarded as a Korean church historian. In 2012, he was selected as the theologian of the year at the 500th Anniversary of John Calvin's birth and received an academic award from the Korean Evangelical Theological Society on October 27, 2018. He served as president of the Korea Presbyterian Theological Society and president of the Reformed Theological Society. He is one of the editors of the International Theological Journal, Unio cum Christo.

#2461

Mark W. Elliott

#125753

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (59 years)

Mark W. Elliott is a scholar of religion who teaches at University of St Andrews. Works

#2462

Klaus Baumann

#188842

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (61 years)

#2463

Mia Lövheim

#177235

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (56 years)

Mia Lövheim is a professor of the Sociology of Religion at Uppsala University in Uppsala, Sweden with a research specialisation in new media. After completing her doctorate in 2004 with a dissertation published as Intersecting Identities: Young People, Religion, and Interaction on the Internet, she did postdoctoral work at the Institute for Media and Communication at the University of Oslo, in Norway, pursuing the theme of her dissertation on youth self-definition on the internet, particularly in relation to girls and to religion, with a project entitled Between Postmodernity and Tradition: Y...

#2464

Steven Grosby

#88196

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (73 years)

Steven Elliot Grosby is Professor of Religion at Clemson University. Education Grosby received his PhD from the Committee on Social Thought of the University of Chicago. Career Grosby's areas of research include the ancient Near East, the Hebrew Bible, the relation between religion and nationality, and Social and Political Philosophy.

#2465

Toivo Harjunpää

#174615

Overall Influence

1910 - 1995 (85 years)

Kalle Toivo Immanuel Harjunpää was a Finnish-American Lutheran priest and professor. Background Harjunpää was born in Rauma, Finland. Harjunpää was ordained to the priesthood 18 February 1936 in Turku Cathedral. His background was in the Finnish Evangelical Revivalist Movement, originating from the activity of neo-Lutheran priest Fredrik Gabriel Hedberg. As a young priest while learning the New Testament, he was convinced of the importance of Christian ecumenism which was unpopular at that time in Finland. Soon after that Yngve Brilioth's book Eucharistic Faith and Practise. Evangelical and C...

#2466

Ernest T. Dixon Jr.

#187288

Overall Influence

1922 - 1996 (74 years)

Ernest Thomas Dixon Jr. was an American bishop of the United Methodist Church, elected in 1972. He was born in San Antonio, Texas. Education Ernest earned his B.A. degree from Samuel Huston College in Austin, Texas in 1943. He earned his Bachelor of Divinity degree from Drew Theological Seminary in Madison, New Jersey in 1945. He received several honorary doctorates over the course of his ministry.

#2467

Isaac Zokoué

#187795

Overall Influence

1944 - 2014 (70 years)

Isaac Zokoué was a leading theologian in the Central African Republic. For 14 years was dean of the leading French-speaking evangelical seminary, Faculte de Theologie Evangelique de Bangui. Zokoué wrote a number of books and articles about harmonizing Christian ideas to African cultures, including “Jésus-Christ sauveur : le mystère des deux natures: perspective africaine,” his doctorate thesis in theology at the University of Strasbourg.

#2468

Eva Hoffmann-Aleith

#161413

Overall Influence

1910 - 2002 (92 years)

Eva Hoffmann-Aleith was a German evangelical pastor, teacher and author. As a woman pastor undertaking what was widely seen as a man's job she became a pioneer and a role model for successor generations.

#2469

Lisa Raphals

#38925

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (73 years)

Lisa Ann Raphals is an American professor of Chinese and comparative literature at the University of California, Riverside , and of philosophy at the National University of Singapore. She compares early China and ancient Greece. She is the author of a number of books, including Knowing Words: Wisdom and Cunning in the Classical Traditions of China and Greece and Sharing the Light: Representations of Women and Virtue in Early China, as well as a collection of poems and translations entitled What Country.

#2470

Ragnar Leivestad

#179572

Overall Influence

1916 - 2002 (86 years)

Ragnar Skouge Leivestad was a Norwegian theologian. He was born in Strinda to judge Ludvig Bernhard Leivestad and Valborg Dorothea Skauge, and was a brother of Supreme Court Justice Trygve Leivestad.

#2471

Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg

#74822

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (80 years)

Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg is a Scottish contemporary Torah scholar and author. Biography She was born in London, England, grew up in Glasgow, Scotland, and moved to Israel in 1969, where she currently resides in Jerusalem. Zornberg's father was Rabbi Dr. Wolf Gottlieb, Rabbi at Queen's Park Synagogue, Glasgow and head of Glasgow's rabbinical court . Zornberg is a descendant of prominent rabbis from Eastern Europe. Her parents settled in Austria. Zornberg's family fled Austria after the Nazi takeover which led to the collapse of Jewish life and subsequent genocide of the Holocaust. Zornberg h...

#2472

Paavo Rintala

#82648

Overall Influence

1930 - 1999 (69 years)

Paavo Olavi Rintala was a Finnish novelist and theologian. He also wrote theatre pieces, radio plays and prose. Rintala was born in Viipuri, Finland. He has won the Finnish State Prize for Literature many times, including in 1956, 1963, 1966, 1972, 1972 and 1991. He won the Finlandia Prize as a Finnish laureate for his 1991 novel Sarmatian Orfeus. He also won the Runeberg Prize in 1994. In 1971, Rintala was awarded the Pro Finlandia medal. Two of his novels have been adapted to film by Finnish film director Mikko Niskanen. First was the 1958 novel Pojat adapted in 1962 with same title . The...

#2473

Verna M. Linzey

Verna M. Linzey

#173544

Overall Influence

1919 - 2016 (97 years)

Verna May Linzey was an American Evangelical theologian and an ordained minister in the General Council of the Assemblies of God and the author of numerous Bibles and books. She is the chief editor of the New Tyndale Version, author of the introductions to the books of the Bible in the Modern English Version Bible , translator of the Book of Proverbs for the MEV, and she is on the faculty Advisory Board at St. Elias Seminary and Graduate School, located in Hamilton, Virginia. In 2006, The Christian Writer's Guild awarded her the "Best Non-Fiction of the Year" award for authoring The Baptism w...

#2474

George Blankenbaker

#187998

Overall Influence

1933 - Present (91 years)

George Vernon Blankenbaker is an American Old Testament theologian and one of only three scholars who worked on both the original 1971 translation of the New American Standard Bible as well as the 1995 update. He is the author of The Language of Hosea 1-3. During his career, he served as vice-president and academic dean of Westmont College, where he currently serves as dean emeritus.

#2475

Spencer J. Condie

#61517

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (84 years)

Spencer Joel Condie has been a general authority of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints since 1989. Condie previously worked as a professor at Brigham Young University and also served as a mission president for the LDS Church in Eastern Europe. In 2010, he was designated as an emeritus general authority.

#2476

Jorge Erdely Graham

#187769

Overall Influence

Jorge Erdely Graham is a Mexican theologian, religious studies scholar, and author. He is associate editor of Revista Académica para el Estudio de las Religiones, a member of the American Academy of Religion and former director of Centro de Investigaciones del Instituto Cristiano de Mexico.

#2477

Nancy Thomson de Grummond

#83787

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (84 years)

Nancy Thomson de Grummond is the M. Lynette Thompson Professor of Classics and Distinguished Research Professor at Florida State University. She specializes in Etruscan, Hellenistic and Roman archaeology. She serves as the director of archaeological excavations at Cetamura del Chianti in Tuscany, Italy. Her current research relates to Etruscan and Roman religion, myth and iconography.

#2478

Tadeusz J. Zieliński

#175153

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (58 years)

Tadeusz Jacek Zieliński is a Polish lawyer and Protestant theologian, professor of theological sciences and Juris Doctor. Member of Polish Parliament and president of Polish Association of Church-State Law . Since 2016 deputy rector of the Christian Academy of Theology in Warsaw.

#2479

Magnús Már Lárusson

#115632

Overall Influence

1917 - 2006 (89 years)

Magnús Már Lárusson was an Icelandic theologian and historian. He was born in Copenhagen. After finishing school in 1937 he studied theology and graduated from the University of Iceland in 1941. Between 1942 and 1949 he was a priest and schoolteacher, but was also employed at the University of Iceland in 1947. He became a professor of theology in 1953 and professor of history in 1968. From 1969 to 1973 he served as rector.

#2480

Mikko Juva

#170758

Overall Influence

1918 - 2004 (86 years)

Mikko Einar Juva was a Finnish historian, theologian and Lutheran archbishop. Biography He was professor in Nordic history 1957–1962 at the University of Turku and professor in Finnish and Scandinavian history and church history at the University of Helsinki 1962–1978. He served as rector of the University of Helsinki from 1971 to 1973 and chancellor from 1973 to 1978. He was also a member of the Finnish parliament 1964–1966 and the chairman of Liberal People's Party 1965–1968.

#2481

Madeleine Barot

#45998

Overall Influence

1909 - 1995 (86 years)

Madeleine Barot was a French activist and theologian, who was influential in Protestant, humanist, and human rights movements. Biography Madeleine Barot was the daughter of Alexandre Auguste Barot, a literature teacher from Clermont-Ferrand, and Madeleine Kuss. From 1927 to 1934, she began her studies at Sorbonne University in Paris, where she achieved both a graduate degree in History and a diploma in library/archives. In 1934, she became an intern at the Bibliothèque nationale de France. She was then hired as a librarian at the École française de Rome, where she worked from June, 1935 to ...

#2482

Linn Tonstad

#189790

Overall Influence

1978 - Present (46 years)

Linn Marie Tonstad is an American theologian who serves as Associate Professor of Theology, Religion, and Sexuality at Yale Divinity School. Biography Tonstad joined the faculty at Yale Divinity School in 2012. She co-chairs the Theology and Religious Reflection unit of the American Academy of Religion and is on the steering committee of its Queer Studies in Religion unit.

#2483

Thomas H. Green

#186766

Overall Influence

1932 - 2009 (77 years)

Thomas Henry Green SJ was an American Jesuit, spiritual director, educator and author of spiritual books. He taught primarily in the Philippines. Early life Thomas Henry Green was the son of George Charles and Marie Margaret Green . After graduating from Catholic The Aquinas Institute of Rochester, he entered the noviciate of the Society of Jesus in Poughkeepsie on September 7, 1949. He studied Philosophy and Theology at Bellarmine College in Plattsburgh, New York, and at Woodstock College in Maryland. At Fordham University he earned a M.A. degree in education and a M.S. degree in Physics .

#2484

Bruce D. Porter

#105391

Overall Influence

1952 - 2016 (64 years)

Bruce Douglas Porter was a political scientist, university professor, and general authority of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints . Biography Porter was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico and attended Brigham Young University . He was a recipient of the David O. McKay scholarship. Porter married Susan H. Porter on February 2, 1977, in the Washington D.C. Temple. They are the parents of four children. His wife later became a counselor and president in the LDS Church's Primary General Presidency.

#2485

Karl Paul Donfried

#141491

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (84 years)

Karl Paul Donfried was an American theologian and New Testament scholar. He is Elizabeth A. Woodson Professor Emeritus of Religion and Biblical Literature at Smith College. Life Donfried was born in New York City and graduated from the prep school Trinity School. He went to college at Columbia University and Harvard Divinity School . Donfried was ordained by the Lutheran Church in America on June 5, 1963, and went on to earn graduate degrees from Union Theological Seminary and the University of Heidelberg .

#2486

Mark Raper

#131558

Overall Influence

Mark Raper SJ AM is a Jesuit priest. He currently serves as president of the Jesuit Conference of Asia Pacific , based in Manila. He was previously provincial superior of the Society of Jesus in Oceania from 2002 until 2008.

#2487

Bede Lackner

#117059

Overall Influence

1927 - 2020 (93 years)

Bede Lackner was a Hungarian-American, Catholic priest and monk of the Cistercian Order. He was a theologian and historian. Biography Flight from Hungary, theological studies, and priestly ordination Fr. Bede was born Károly János Lackner in Vaskút, in southern Hungary, to Stefan Lackner and Elisabeth Rutscher. They were so-called Danube Swabians who had been brought into Hungary mainly in the eighteenth century to repopulate it after the expulsion of the Ottoman Turks. He entered the Cistercian Order in 1947 at the Abbey of Zirc after attending a school run by Cistercians in Baja for eight years.

#2488

Alex Clare-Young

#130173

Overall Influence

Alex Clare-Young is a transmasculine non-binary Minister of the United Reformed Church in the United Kingdom. They minister mainly to an online church , and offer education and advocacy to schools, churches and Christian communities on issues relating to gender identity.

#2489

Egano Righi-Lambertini

Egano Righi-Lambertini

#156905

Overall Influence

1906 - 2000 (94 years)

Egano Righi-Lambertini was an Italian prelate of the Catholic Church. He spent decades in the diplomatic service of the Holy See and from 1957 to 1974 held a series of appointments as Papal Delegate to Korea and then Papal Nuncio to Lebanon, Chile, Italy, and France. He was made a cardinal in 1979.

#2490

Erasmus Desiderius Wandera

#103425

Overall Influence

1930 - 2022 (92 years)

Erasmus Desiderius Wandera was a Ugandan Roman Catholic priest who served as the Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Soroti, from 29 March 1981 until 27 June 2007. Wandera died on 8 December 2022, at the age of 92.

#2491

Taylor G. Petrey

#183181

Overall Influence

1976 - Present (48 years)

Taylor G. Petrey is an American scholar of religion and the editor of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought since 2019. He is a professor at Kalamazoo College. In 2016–17, he was a visiting associate professor at Harvard Divinity School and research associate at the Women's Studies in Religion Program. He specializes in gender studies, Early Christianity, and Mormonism. His 2020 book Tabernacles of Clay: Sexuality and Gender in Modern Mormonism has won numerous awards, including "Best Book Award" from the Mormon History Association and a "Choice Outstanding Academic Title" award.

#2492

Mathias Rissi

#186042

Overall Influence

1920 - 2006 (86 years)

Mathias Rissi was a New Testament scholar and teacher, the Walter H. Robertson Professor of New Testament at Union Theological Seminary, Richmond. He is a specialist in the Book of Revelation and the Gospel of John.

#2493

Alun Hawkins

#177013

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (80 years)

Alun John Hawkins is an Anglican priest. He was the Dean of Bangor from 2004 to 2011. Born on 28 May 1944 and educated at King's College London he was a Lecturer in English and Drama at UCNW, Bangor until his ordination in 1981.

#2494

Giuseppe Liberto

#186213

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (81 years)

Giuseppe Liberto is an Italian priest, choral director and composer. He was director of the Choir of the Sistine Chapel 1997–2010. Life In 1997 Pope John Paul II called upon Liberto to serve as the Director of the Choir of the Sistine Chapel. He held this position until October 2021.

#2495

Roger L. Shinn

#166033

Overall Influence

1917 - 2013 (96 years)

Roger L. Shinn was an American theologian. He was a dean and acting president of the Union Theological Seminary, and the author of many books. Works Christianity and the Problem of History

#2496

Philip Giddings

#138705

Overall Influence

Philip Giddings is a British retired political scientist and academic, specialising in parliamentary government. He is a lecturer in politics at the University of Reading. He is also a lay leader in the Church of England, and heads the conservative evangelical Anglican movement called Anglican Mainstream.

#2497

Mircea Păcurariu

#121594

Overall Influence

1932 - 2021 (89 years)

Mircea Păcurariu was a Romanian theologian, historian and priest in the Romanian Orthodox Church. Biography Born in Ruși, Hunedoara County, he was the son of the village priest. He enrolled in the History faculty of Babeș University in Cluj, but had to leave after his first year because the Communist Romanian authorities viewed his social origin as unacceptable. He later attended the theological seminaries in Sibiu and in Bucharest, then taught at the seminaries of Neamț Monastery and Sibiu. In 1997, he was elected a corresponding member of the Romanian Academy; he was elevated to titular sta...

#2498

Marc-Alain Ouaknin

#57767

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (67 years)

Marc-Alain Ouaknin both a rabbi and a philosopher. He is the son of Rabbi Jacques Ouaknin and Eliane Erlich Ouaknin His father is the Grand Rabbi of the French cities of Reims, Lille, Metz, and Marseille. Ouaknin dedicated his best-known work, The Burnt Book, to "my father, my master, Grand Rabbi Jacques Ouaknin."

#2499

Mary McClintock Fulkerson

#187905

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Mary McClintock Fulkerson is a Protestant theologian and scholar whose work explores feminist theologies and gender issues. She is currently a Professor Emerita of Theology at Duke Divinity School and an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church .

#2500

Eduardo Herrera Riera

#145445

Overall Influence

1927 - 2012 (85 years)

Eduardo Herrera Riera was the Catholic bishop of the Diocese of Carora of Venezuela from 1994 until retirement in 2003. Ordained to the priesthood in 1955, he was named Auxiliary Bishop of Cumaná in 1965, Bishop of Guanare in 1966 and Auxiliary Bishop of Barquisimeto in 1970.

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