The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.
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List of the most influential people in Religious Studies,
#2751
Arthur Maheux
1884 - 1967 (83 years)
Monsignor Joseph Thomas Arthur Maheux, SM, OBE, FRSC was a Canadian priest and historian. He was a leading proponent of Canadian unity as well as a trenchant critic of Quebec society. He was president of the Société du parler français au Canada from 1924 to 1925 and president of the Canadian Historical Association from 1948 to 1949.
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Charles Journet
1891 - 1975 (84 years)
Charles Journet was a Swiss Roman Catholic theologian. He was the first Swiss named a cardinal. Journet has been considered a figure of holiness and a candidate for canonisation; he has been accorded the title servant of God.
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Arthur Võõbus
1909 - 1988 (79 years)
Arthur Vööbus was an Estonian theologian, orientalist, scholar, author, professor, and church historian. Biography Arthur Vööbus was born in Matjama village, Tartu County, Livonia, Russian Empire as the son of a teacher. In 1928, he completed his schooling at the Hugo Treffner Gymnasium in Tartu, then in 1932 his studies at the Theological Faculty of the University of Tartu. That same year he was ordained a priest. From 1933 to 1940 he was a pastor in the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tartu. Arthur Vööbus graduated as master of theology in 1934 with a thesis on "The true Christian, ...
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Hugo Enomiya-Lassalle
1898 - 1990 (92 years)
Hugo Makibi Enomiya-Lassalle was a German Jesuit priest and one of the foremost teachers to embrace both Roman Catholic Christianity and Zen Buddhism. Biography Hugo Lassalle passed his school days from 1911 to 1916 at the Gymnasium Petrinum in Brilon in 1917. Because of an injury in the First World War, Hugo Lassalle was admitted to the military hospital of Brilon in 1917. Enomiya-Lassalle joined the Society of Jesus on 25 April 1919. At the end of the usual Jesuit spiritual and academic training he was ordained priest on 28 August 1927.
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Friedrich Gogarten
1887 - 1967 (80 years)
Friedrich Gogarten was a Lutheran theologian, co-founder of dialectical theology in Germany in the early 20th century. Career Under the leadership of Karl Barth, Gogarten split from the prevailing liberal theology as represented by Albrecht Ritschl and others. He stood against the historicism and anthropocentrism of the Protestant theology of the 19th century by emphasizing the absolute antithesis of God and man. This new dialectical theology was named after a phrase in Gogarten's magazine Between the Ages.
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Adolf Köberle
1898 - 1990 (92 years)
Adolf Köberle was a German theologian. From 1922 to 1926, he was head of the Evangelical Lutheran Mission Seminary in Leipzig. From 1930 to 1939, he was Professor of Systematic Theology in Basel. He is best known for his work, The Quest for Holiness: A Biblical, Historical, and Systematic Investigation.
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Richard Knowling
1851 - 1919 (68 years)
Canon Richard Knowling, DD was the Chaplain of King's College London, canon of Durham and professor of divinity at Durham University. Early life Richard John Knowling was born in Devonport, England and educated at Blundell's School in Tiverton and at Balliol College in Oxford. After taking Honours in Lit.Hum and theology, he was appointed classical master at Abingdon School in 1874. In 1875 Knowling was ordained deacon and from 1878 to 1879 served as curate of Wellington in Somerset, where his father, Prebendary Knowling, was vicar.
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David Capell Simpson
1883 - 1955 (72 years)
David Capell Simpson , known as D. C. Simpson, was a British biblical scholar, academic and Church of England clergyman. He was Oriel Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture at the University of Oxford from 1925 to 1950.
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Oskar Holtzmann
1859 - 1934 (75 years)
Oskar Holtzmann was a German theologian who specialized in New Testament studies. From 1877 to 1883 he studied theology at the universities of Strasbourg, Göttingen and Giessen and at the seminary in Friedberg. Afterwards, he served as a pastor in Bickenbach and as a teacher at a number of different schools. In 1889 he became a lecturer at the University of Giessen, where during the following year, he was appointed an associate professor of New Testament exegesis.
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Ole Hallesby
1879 - 1961 (82 years)
Ole Kristian Hallesby was a conservative, Norwegian Lutheran theologian, author and educator. Biography Ole Kristian Hallesby was born in Aremark, in Østfold, Norway. Hallesby grew up as the sixth of eight siblings on a family farm with a father also served as an assistant pastor. His family was from the Lutheran piety of the Haugean heritage. He graduated with a degree in theology in 1903 and was awarded his doctorate in 1909.
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Charles E. Sheedy
1912 - 1990 (78 years)
Charles E. Sheedy, C.S.C. was an American priest and theologian of the Congregation of Holy Cross and an administrator at the University of Notre Dame. Youth and training Fr. Sheedy was born on July 1, 1912, to Patrick and Estelle Sheedy in Pittsburgh, PA. The fifth of six children, his birth was preceded by siblings Morgan, Donald, John, and Leo, and followed by Herman. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Notre Dame in 1933, a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Pittsburgh in 1936, and a Licentiate of Sacred Theology in 1945 and a Doctor of Sacred Theology from the Catholic...
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Abram S. Isaacs
1851 - 1920 (69 years)
Abram S. Isaacs was an American rabbi, author, and professor. Isaacs received his education at the New York University, from which he was graduated in 1871. He became a Rabbi at Barnett Memorial Temple at Paterson, New Jersey. For thirty-five years he occupied a chair at the New York University, first as Professor of Hebrew, then of Germanic languages, and later of Semitics. Starting in 1878, he edited The Jewish Messenger, a weekly publication devoted to Jewish communal affairs. It became merged in The American Hebrew in 1903, at which time Isaacs withdrew from editorial work. He was also a frequent contributor to periodicals, writing on Judaism and Jewish issues.
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Heinrich Schrörs
1852 - 1928 (76 years)
Johann Heinrich Schrörs was a German Catholic church historian. Biography He studied theology in Bonn, Würzburg and Innsbruck, where he was a student of Josef Jungmann . In 1877 he was ordained as priest in Innsbruck, and in 1885 became a professor of canon law at Freiburg im Breisgau. During the following year, with encouragement from Friedrich Althoff , he attained the chair of church history at the University of Bonn. At Bonn he served as university dean on five occasions .
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Garfield Bromley Oxnam
1891 - 1963 (72 years)
Garfield Bromley Oxnam was a social reformer and American Bishop in the Methodist Episcopal Church, elected in 1936. Early life Garfield Bromley Oxnam was born in Los Angeles on August 14, 1891. His father was a mining engineer and instilled in his son a conservative theology. Oxnam embraced these beliefs in his youth, even describing socialism as "the biggest idiocy ever presented to the public." However, in his early 20s Oxnam gravitated towards Dana W. Bartlett and the movements of the Social Gospel.
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Israel Goldstein
1896 - 1986 (90 years)
Israel Goldstein was an American-born Israeli rabbi, author and Zionist leader. He was one of the leading founders of Brandeis University. Early life and education Goldstein, born in Philadelphia, was a noteworthy graduate of South Philadelphia High School in 1911. At that time the school program was manual training, but his record showed to school administrators that there was more promise for academics servicing the immigrant population of South Philadelphia. He graduated the school at age 14. In 1911, while finishing his high school degree, he also completed a Bachelor of Hebrew Letters ...
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Edmund Tyrrell Green
1864 - 1937 (73 years)
Edmund Tyrrell Green was an English Anglican academic, curate and author. He graduated from St John's College, Oxford, with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1886. From 1887 until 1890 he was a curate of St Barnabas, Oxford, and was then appointed lecturer in Hebrew and theology at St David's College, Lampeter, Wales. Six years later, he became professor of the same subjects in addition to being a lecturer in parochial duties since 1896. He was lecturer in architecture in 1902, and wrote several books on the details of church architecture, often using his own drawings. He was also one of the found...
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Paul Ramsey
1913 - 1988 (75 years)
Robert Paul Ramsey was an American Christian ethicist of the 20th century. He was a Methodist and his primary focus in ethics was medical ethics. The major portion of his academic career was spent as a tenured professor at Princeton University until the end of his life in 1988. His most notable contributions to ethics were in the fields of Christian ethics, bioethics, just war theory and common law.
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Wolf Wilhelm Friedrich von Baudissin
1847 - 1926 (79 years)
Wolf Wilhelm Friedrich Graf von Baudissin was a German Protestant theologian who was a native of Sophienhof, near Kiel. Education Baudissin studied theology and Oriental studies at Berlin, Erlangen, Leipzig and Kiel, earning his doctorate in 1870 at Leipzig.
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G. Johannes Botterweck
1917 - 1981 (64 years)
Gerhard Johannes Botterweck was a German theologian, Old Testament scholar and dean of the Catholic Theological Faculty of the University of Bonn. He is best known for his multi volume work the Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament.
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Saul Lieberman
1898 - 1983 (85 years)
Saul Lieberman , also known as Rabbi Shaul Lieberman or, among some of his students, The Gra"sh , was a rabbi and a Talmudic scholar. He served as Professor of Talmud at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America for over 40 years, and for many years was dean of the Harry Fischel Institute in Israel and also president of the American Academy for Jewish Research.
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Nathaniel Micklem
1888 - 1976 (88 years)
Nathaniel Micklem was a British theologian and political activist who also served as the principal of Mansfield College. Early life and education Micklem was born in Brondesbury. His father, also Nathaniel Micklem, was a barrister who later became a Liberal Party Member of Parliament. He grew up in Boxmoor, Hertfordshire, and studied at Rugby School, New College, Oxford and Mansfield College, serving as President of the Oxford Union.
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Bernard Drachman
1861 - 1945 (84 years)
Rabbi Dr. Bernard Drachman was a leader of Orthodox Judaism in the United States at the beginning of the twentieth century. Biography Drachman was born to parents who were immigrants from Galicia and Bavaria. After studying in a Hebrew preparatory school, Drachman earned a B.A. from Columbia College. He earned a scholarship at the Jewish Theological Seminary of Breslau where he received his rabbinic ordination. He also earned a PhD from the University of Heidelberg.
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Howard Masterman
1867 - 1933 (66 years)
John Howard Bertram Masterman was the first Anglican Bishop of Plymouth from 1923 to 1933. In authorship he is known as J. H. B. Masterman. His works ranged from religion to political and in the First World War he was asked to write two of the tracts distributed to troops to assure them that they were doing God's will.
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Ludwig Wahrmund
1860 - 1932 (72 years)
Ludwig Wahrmund was an Austrian professor of Canon Law at the University of Innsbruck. Ludwig was the son of Adolf Wahrmund, a noted anti-semite. However, Ludwig rose to prominence from a lecture he gave on 18 January 1908 in Innsbruck Town Hall entitled Catholic Weltanschauung and Free Science. The lecture was repeated in Salzburg and published as a pamphlet. Ludwig's criticism of the Catholic Church and their attempt to control education gave rise to the "Wahrmund Affair", which led to his removal from his professorial chair in Innsbruck.
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Philip Edgcumbe Hughes
1915 - 1990 (75 years)
Philip Edgcumbe Hughes was an Anglican clergyman and New Testament scholar whose life spanned four continents: Australia, where he was born; South Africa, where he spent his formative years; England, where he was ordained; and the United States, where he died in 1990, aged 75.
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Friedrich Eduard König
1846 - 1936 (90 years)
Friedrich Eduard König was a German Lutheran divine and Semitic scholar. Biography He was born at Reichenbach im Vogtland and was educated at the University of Leipzig . Afterwards, he worked as a religious instructor at the Royal Realgymnasium in Döbeln and at the Thomasschule zu Leipzig . He then became a lecturer and an associate professor of theology at the University of Leipzig. In 1888 he became a full professor at Rostock and in 1900 at the University of Bonn, where, as a theologian attacking Panbabylonism, he became involved in the so-called "Babel-Bible Dispute".
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Albrecht Dieterich
1866 - 1908 (42 years)
Albrecht Dieterich was a German classical philologist and scholar of religion born in Hersfeld. Academic background He studied at the Universities of Leipzig and Bonn, where at the latter he was a student of Hermann Usener , who in 1899 became Dieterich's father-in-law. In 1888 he earned his doctorate, and three years later received his habilitation in Marburg with a dissertation on Orphism. Afterwards he traveled to Italy and Greece for research purposes. In 1895 he returned to Marburg as an associate professor, and two years later succeeded Eduard Schwartz as chair of classical philology at the University of Giessen.
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Alfred Rahlfs
1865 - 1935 (70 years)
Alfred Rahlfs was a German Biblical scholar. He was a member of the history of religions school. He is known for his edition of the Septuagint published in 1935. Biography He was born in Linden near Hanover, and studied Protestant Theology, Philosophy, and Oriental Languages in Halle and Göttingen, where he received a Dr. Phil. in 1887. His professional career developed in Göttingen, where he was Stiftsinspektor , Privatdozent , Extraordinarius , and Professor for Old Testament . He retired in 1933 and died in Göttingen.
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Friedrich Brunstäd
1883 - 1944 (61 years)
Friedrich Brunstäd was a German Lutheran systematic theologian and philosopher. He attempted a renewal of German idealism, from the point of view of Lutheranism. From 1901 he studied philosophy, theology, political science and history at the universities of Heidelberg and Berlin, receiving his doctorate in 1909 with the thesis Untersuchungen zu Hegels Geschichtstheorie . In 1911 he obtained his habilitation for philosophy at the University of Erlangen, where in 1918 he became an associate professor. In 1925 he was appointed as professor of systematic theology at the University of Rostock .
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Günther Dehn
1882 - 1970 (88 years)
Günther Dehn was a German pastor and theologian. He was an illegal instructor in the Confessing Church, and, after 1945, he was a professor of practical theology. Dehn was one of the first victims of Nazi campaigns against critical intellectuals in the Weimar Republic. He was a Christian socialist in the tradition of Christoph Blumhardt, Hermann Kutter, and Leonhard Ragaz.
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Jesus
7 BC - 30 (37 years)
Jesus , also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many other names and titles, was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the central figure of Christianity, the world's largest religion. Most Christians worship Jesus as the incarnation of God the Son and the awaited Messiah , that is prophesied in the Hebrew Bible.
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Muhammad
570 - 632 (62 years)
Muhammad was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet divinely inspired to preach and confirm the monotheistic teachings of Adam, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and other prophets. He is believed to be the Seal of the Prophets within Islam, with the Quran as well as his teachings and practices forming the basis for Islamic religious belief.
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Thomas Aquinas
1225 - 1274 (49 years)
Thomas Aquinas was an Italian Dominican friar and priest, an influential philosopher and theologian, and a jurist in the tradition of scholasticism from the county of Aquino in the Kingdom of Sicily.
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Augustine of Hippo
354 - 430 (76 years)
Augustine of Hippo , also known as Saint Augustine, was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Africa. His writings influenced the development of Western philosophy and Western Christianity, and he is viewed as one of the most important Church Fathers of the Latin Church in the Patristic Period. His many important works include The City of God, On Christian Doctrine, and Confessions.
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Origen
185 - 254 (69 years)
Origen of Alexandria , also known as Origen Adamantius, was an early Christian scholar, ascetic, and theologian who was born and spent the first half of his career in Alexandria. He was a prolific writer who wrote roughly 2,000 treatises in multiple branches of theology, including textual criticism, biblical exegesis and hermeneutics, homiletics, and spirituality. He was one of the most influential and controversial figures in early Christian theology, apologetics, and asceticism. He has been described as "the greatest genius the early church ever produced".
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Martin Luther
1483 - 1546 (63 years)
Martin Luther was a German priest, theologian, author, hymnwriter, professor, and Augustinian friar. He was the seminal figure of the Protestant Reformation, and his theological beliefs form the basis of Lutheranism.
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Paul the Apostle
5 - 67 (62 years)
Paul , commonly known as Paul the Apostle and Saint Paul, was a Christian apostle who spread the teachings of Jesus in the first-century world. Generally regarded as one of the most important figures of the Apostolic Age, he founded several Christian communities in Asia Minor and Europe from the mid-40s to the mid-50s AD.
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Jerome
345 - 420 (75 years)
Jerome , also known as Jerome of Stridon, was an early Christian priest, confessor, theologian, translator, and historian; he is commonly known as Saint Jerome. Jerome was born at Stridon. The exact location of Stridon is unknown. It is possible Stridon was located either in modern Croatia or Slovenia. Possible locations are the vicinity of Ljubljana, Starod , Sdrin, Štrigova, Zrenj, Zrin or, according to Frane Bulić in his work Stridon in Grahovsko polje, near the town of Grahovo, in today's Bosnia and Herzegovina.
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Irenaeus
130 - 202 (72 years)
Irenaeus was a Greek bishop noted for his role in guiding and expanding Christian communities in the southern regions of present-day France and, more widely, for the development of Christian theology by combating heterodox or Gnostic interpretations of Scripture as heresy and defining proto-orthodoxy. Originating from Smyrna, he had seen and heard the preaching of Polycarp, who in turn was said to have heard John the Evangelist, and thus was the last-known living connection with the Apostles.
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Eusebius
265 - 339 (74 years)
Eusebius of Caesarea , also known as Eusebius Pamphilus , was a Greek or Palestinian historian of Christianity, exegete, and Christian polemicist. In about AD 314 he became the bishop of Caesarea Maritima in the Roman province of Syria Palaestina. Together with Pamphilus, he was a scholar of the biblical canon and is regarded as one of the most learned Christians during late antiquity. He wrote Demonstrations of the Gospel, Preparations for the Gospel and On Discrepancies between the Gospels, studies of the biblical text. As "Father of Church History" , he produced the Ecclesiastical History, On the Life of Pamphilus, the Chronicle and On the Martyrs.
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Adi Shankara
788 - 820 (32 years)
Adi Shankara, also called Adi Shankaracharya , was an 8th-century Indian Vedic scholar and teacher . His works present a harmonizing reading of the sastras, with liberating knowledge of the self at its core, synthesizing the Advaita Vedanta teachings of his time.
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John Calvin
1509 - 1564 (55 years)
John Calvin was a French theologian, pastor and reformer in Geneva during the Protestant Reformation. He was a principal figure in the development of the system of Christian theology later called Calvinism, including its doctrines of predestination and of God's absolute sovereignty in the salvation of the human soul from death and eternal damnation. Calvinist doctrines were influenced by and elaborated upon the Augustinian and other Christian traditions. Various Congregational, Reformed and Presbyterian churches, which look to Calvin as the chief expositor of their beliefs, have spread throug...
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Tertullian
155 - 220 (65 years)
Tertullian was a prolific early Christian author from Carthage in the Roman province of Africa. He was the first Christian author to produce an extensive corpus of Latin Christian literature. He was an early Christian apologist and a polemicist against heresy, including contemporary Christian Gnosticism. Tertullian has been called "the father of Latin Christianity", as well as "the founder of Western theology".
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Xuanzang
602 - 664 (62 years)
Xuanzang , born Chen Hui / Chen Yi , also known by his Sanskrit Dharma name Mokṣadeva, was a 7th-century Chinese Buddhist monk, scholar, traveler, and translator. He is known for the epoch-making contributions to Chinese Buddhism, the travelogue of his journey to India in 629–645 CE, his efforts to bring over 657 Indian texts to China, and his translations of some of these texts. He was only able to translate 75 distinct sections of a total of 1335 chapters, but his translations included some of the most important Mahayana scriptures.
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Karl Barth
1886 - 1968 (82 years)
Karl Barth was a Swiss Reformed theologian. Barth is best known for his commentary The Epistle to the Romans, his involvement in the Confessing Church, including his authorship of the Barmen Declaration, and especially his unfinished multi-volume theological summa the Church Dogmatics . Barth's influence expanded well beyond the academic realm to mainstream culture, leading him to be featured on the cover of Time on 20 April 1962.
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Clement of Alexandria
150 - 215 (65 years)
Titus Flavius Clemens, also known as Clement of Alexandria , was a Christian theologian and philosopher who taught at the Catechetical School of Alexandria. Among his pupils were Origen and Alexander of Jerusalem. A convert to Christianity, he was an educated man who was familiar with classical Greek philosophy and literature. As his three major works demonstrate, Clement was influenced by Hellenistic philosophy to a greater extent than any other Christian thinker of his time, and in particular, by Plato and the Stoics. His secret works, which exist only in fragments, suggest that he was familiar with pre-Christian Jewish esotericism and Gnosticism as well.
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Kūkai
774 - 835 (61 years)
Kūkai , born Saeki no Mao , posthumously called Kōbō Daishi, was a Japanese Buddhist monk, calligrapher, and poet who founded the esoteric Shingon school of Buddhism. He travelled to China, where he studied Tangmi under the monk Huiguo. Upon returning to Japan, he founded Shingon—the Japanese branch of Vajrayana Buddhism. With the blessing of several Emperors, Kūkai was able to preach Shingon teachings and found Shingon temples. Like other influential monks, Kūkai oversaw public works and constructions. Mount Kōya was chosen by him as a holy site, and he spent his later years there until his ...
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Ephrem the Syrian
306 - 373 (67 years)
Ephrem the Syrian , also known as Saint Ephrem, Saint Ephraim, Ephrem of Edessa or Aprem of Nisibis, was a prominent Christian theologian and writer, who is revered as one of the most notable hymnographers of Eastern Christianity. He was born in Nisibis, served as a deacon and later lived in Edessa.
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Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
1770 - 1831 (61 years)
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a German philosopher and one of the most influential figures of German idealism and 19th-century philosophy. His influence extends across the entire range of contemporary philosophical topics, from metaphysical issues in epistemology and ontology, to political philosophy, the philosophy of history, philosophy of art, philosophy of religion, and the history of philosophy.
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Mary, mother of Jesus
100 BC - 100 (200 years)
Mary was a first-century Judean woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph and the mother of Jesus. She is a central figure of Christianity, venerated under various titles such as virgin or queen, many of them mentioned in the Litany of Loreto. The Eastern and Oriental Orthodox, Church of the East, Catholic, Anglican, and Lutheran churches believe that Mary, as mother of Jesus, is the Mother of God. Other Protestant views on Mary vary, with some holding her to have considerably lesser status.
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