#2801
Nachman of Breslov
1772 - 1810 (38 years)
Nachman of Breslov , also known as Reb Nachman of Bratslav, Reb Nachman Breslover , and Nachman from Uman , was the founder of the Breslov Hasidic movement. He was particularly known for his creative parables, which drew on Eastern European folktales to infuse his teaching by creating deeply kabbalistic and yet universally accessible remedies, advices and parabolic stories, through which anyone can project himself into and draw spiritual and practical guidance. He emphasized finding and expressing a person's uniqueness, while steering away from despair in a world he saw as becoming more and more standardized.
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Theodore Beza
1519 - 1605 (86 years)
Theodore Beza was a French Calvinist Protestant theologian, reformer and scholar who played an important role in the Protestant Reformation. He was a disciple of John Calvin and lived most of his life in Geneva. Beza succeeded Calvin as the spiritual leader of the Republic of Geneva.
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Romano Guardini
1885 - 1968 (83 years)
Romano Guardini was an Italian, naturalized German Catholic priest, philosopher and theologian. Life Romano Michele Antonio Maria Guardini was born in Verona in 1885 and was baptized in the Church of San Nicolò all'Arena. His father Romano Tullo was a poultry wholesaler. Guardini had three younger brothers. The family moved to Mainz when he was one year old and he lived in Germany for the rest of his life. He attended the Rabanus-Maurus-Gymnasium. Guardini wrote that as a young man he was “always anxious and very scrupulous.”
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Adalbert of Prague
956 - 997 (41 years)
Adalbert of Prague , known in the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia by his birth name Vojtěch , was a Czech missionary and Christian saint. He was the Bishop of Prague and a missionary to the Hungarians, Poles, and Prussians, who was martyred in his efforts to convert the Baltic Prussians to Christianity. He is said to be the composer of the oldest Czech hymn Hospodine, pomiluj ny and Bogurodzica, the oldest known Polish hymn, but his authorship of them has not been confirmed.
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Johann Eck
1486 - 1543 (57 years)
Johann Maier von Eck , often anglicized as John Eck, was a German Catholic theologian, scholastic, prelate, and a pioneer of the counter-reformation who was among Martin Luther's most important interlocutors and theological opponents.
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William Carey
1761 - 1834 (73 years)
William Carey was an English Christian missionary, Particular Baptist minister, translator, social reformer and cultural anthropologist who founded the Serampore College and the Serampore University, the first degree-awarding university in India.
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Leopold Zunz
1794 - 1886 (92 years)
Leopold Zunz was the founder of academic Judaic Studies , the critical investigation of Jewish literature, hymnology and ritual. Zunz's historical investigations and contemporary writings had an important influence on contemporary Judaism.
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Jean Gerson
1363 - 1429 (66 years)
Jean Charlier de Gerson was a French scholar, educator, reformer, and poet, Chancellor of the University of Paris, a guiding light of the conciliar movement and one of the most prominent theologians at the Council of Constance. He was one of the first thinkers to develop what would later come to be called natural rights theory, and was also one of the first individuals to defend Joan of Arc and proclaim her supernatural vocation as authentic.
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Luis de Molina
1535 - 1600 (65 years)
Luis de Molina was a Spanish Jesuit priest and scholastic, a staunch defender of free will in the controversy over human liberty and God's grace. His theology is known as Molinism. Life From 1551 to 1562, Molina studied law in Salamanca, philosophy in Alcalá de Henares, and theology in Coimbra. After 1563, he became a professor at the University of Coimbra, and afterward taught at the University of Évora, Portugal. From this post he was called, at the end of twenty years, to the chair of moral theology in Madrid, where he died.
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Martin Chemnitz
1522 - 1586 (64 years)
Martin Chemnitz was an eminent second-generation German, Evangelical Lutheran, Christian theologian, and a Protestant reformer, churchman, and confessor. In the Evangelical Lutheran tradition he is known as Alter Martinus, the "Second Martin": Si Martinus non fuisset, Martinus vix stetisset goes a common saying concerning him. He is listed and remembered in the Calendar of Saints and Commemorations in the Liturgical Church Year as a pastor and confessor by both the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod.
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C. I. Scofield
1843 - 1921 (78 years)
Cyrus Ingerson Scofield was an American theologian, minister, and writer whose best-selling annotated Bible popularized futurism and dispensationalism among fundamentalist Christians. Biography Childhood Cyrus Scofield was born in Clinton Township, Lenawee County, Michigan, the seventh and last child of Elias and Abigail Goodrich Scofield. Elias Scofield's ancestors were of English and Puritan descent, but the family was nominally Episcopalian. Abigail Scofield died three months after Cyrus's birth, and his father twice remarried during Cyrus's minority. Details of his early education are u...
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Theodor Zahn
1838 - 1933 (95 years)
Theodor Zahn or Theodor von Zahn was a German Protestant theologian, a biblical scholar. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature three times. Career Zahn was born in Moers of the Rhineland, Prussia . After studying at Basel, Erlangen and Berlin, he became professor of theology in the University of Göttingen in 1871. He filled a similar chair at Kiel in 1877, at Erlangen in 1878, at Leipzig in 1888 and in 1892 returned to Erlangen. He was distinguished for his eminent scholarship, especially in connection with the New Testament canon. He stood at the head of the conservative New Testament scholarship of his time.
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Pierre Poiret
1646 - 1719 (73 years)
Pierre Poiret Naudé was a prominent French mystic and Christian philosopher. He was born in Metz and died in Rijnsburg. Life and accomplishments After the early death of his parents, he supported himself by the engraver's trade and the teaching of French, at the same time studying theology, in Basel, Hanau, and, after 1668, Heidelberg. At Basel he was captivated by Descartes' philosophy, which never quite lost its hold on him. He read also Thomas à Kempis and Tauler, but was especially influenced by the writings of the Dutch Mennonite mystic Hendrik Jansen van Barrefelt , whose works were pu...
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Howard Thurman
1899 - 1981 (82 years)
Howard Washington Thurman was an American author, philosopher, theologian, mystic, educator, and civil rights leader. As a prominent religious figure, he played a leading role in many social justice movements and organizations of the twentieth century. Thurman's theology of radical nonviolence influenced and shaped a generation of civil rights activists, and he was a key mentor to leaders within the civil rights movement, including Martin Luther King Jr.
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Eduard Thurneysen
1888 - 1974 (86 years)
Eduard Thurneysen was a Swiss Protestant clergyman and theologian, who was an important representative of dialectical theology. Born in Walenstadt on 10 July 1888, he studied theology under Bernhard Duhm and Paul Wernle at the University of Basel, and from 1911 served as an assistant secretary of the Christliche Verein Junger Menschen in Zürich. From 1913 to 1920 he was a pastor in Leutwil, during which time, he came in close contact with Karl Barth, then a minister in nearby Safenwil.
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Franciscus Gomarus
1563 - 1641 (78 years)
Franciscus Gomarus was a Dutch theologian, a strict Calvinist and an opponent of the teaching of Jacobus Arminius , whose theological disputes were addressed at the Synod of Dort . Life Gomarus was born in Bruges. His parents, having embraced the principles of the Reformation, emigrated from Bruges to the Electorate of the Palatinate in 1578, in order to enjoy freedom to profess their new faith, and they sent their son to be educated at Strasbourg under Johann Sturm. He remained there three years, and then went in 1580 to Neustadt, from which the professors of Heidelberg had been driven by the elector-palatine because they were not Lutherans.
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Friedrich Rittelmeyer
1872 - 1938 (66 years)
Friedrich Rittelmeyer was a Lutheran German minister, theologian and the principal founder and first leader of The Christian Community. Rittelmeyer came to prominence in the early 20th century as a leading academic liberal theologian and priest in Germany and wrote several books that advocated a socially engaged "Christianity of deeds" . During the First World War he eventually became one of the most high-profile clergymen in Germany to publicly oppose the war. From the 1910s his thinking was gradually influenced by the philosopher Rudolf Steiner, and in 1922 a group of mainly Lutheran priest...
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Richard Bentley
1662 - 1742 (80 years)
Richard Bentley FRS was an English classical scholar, critic, and theologian. Considered the "founder of historical philology", Bentley is widely credited with establishing the English school of Hellenism. In 1892, A. E. Housman called Bentley "the greatest scholar that England or perhaps that Europe ever bred".
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Bernardus Johannes Alfrink
1900 - 1987 (87 years)
Bernardus Johannes Alfrink was a Dutch Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Utrecht from 1955 to 1975, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1960. Biography Born in Nijkerk, Bernardus Johannes Alfrink was the youngest son of Theodorus Johannes Alfrink and his wife, Elisabeth Catharina Ossenvoort. His mother died in 1901 at the birth of his two younger twin sisters , after which Bernardus was cared for by a childless aunt from neighboring Barneveld for the next three years. The priest who baptized him was Father Johannes Verstege. Alfrink received his first Comm...
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Catherine of Alexandria
287 - 305 (18 years)
Catherine of Alexandria, also spelled Katherine is, according to tradition, a Christian saint and virgin, who was martyred in the early fourth century at the hands of the emperor Maxentius. According to her hagiography, she was both a princess and a noted scholar who became a Christian around the age of 14, converted hundreds of people to Christianity and was martyred around the age of eighteen. More than 1,100 years after Catherine's martyrdom, Joan of Arc identified her as one of the saints who appeared to and counselled her.
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Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet
1627 - 1704 (77 years)
Jacques-Bénigne Lignel Bossuet was a French bishop and theologian renowned for his sermons and other addresses. He has been considered by many to be one of the most brilliant orators of all time and a master French stylist.
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Faustina Kowalska
1905 - 1938 (33 years)
Maria Faustyna Kowalska, OLM , also known as Maria Faustyna Kowalska of the Blessed Sacrament, was a Polish Catholic religious sister and mystic. Faustyna, popularly spelled "Faustina", had apparitions of Jesus Christ which inspired the Catholic devotion to the Divine Mercy and earned her the title of "Secretary of Divine Mercy".
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Georg Hermes
1775 - 1831 (56 years)
Georg Hermes was a German Roman Catholic theologian who advocated a rational approach to theology. During his lifetime, his theology was greatly in vogue in Germany, but declined after the posthumous papal condemnation of "Hermesianism".
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Pope Nicholas I
820 - 867 (47 years)
Pope Nicholas I , called Nicholas the Great, was the bishop of Rome and ruler of the Papal States from 24 April 858 until his death. He is remembered as a consolidator of papal authority, exerting decisive influence on the historical development of the papacy and its position among the Christian nations of Western Europe. Nicholas I asserted that the pope should have suzerainty over all Christians, even royalty, in matters of faith and morals.
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Vincent de Paul
1581 - 1660 (79 years)
Vincent de Paul, CM , commonly known as Saint Vincent de Paul, was an Occitan French Catholic priest who dedicated himself to serving the poor. In 1622 Vincent was appointed a chaplain to the galleys. After working for some time in Paris among imprisoned galley slaves, he returned to be the superior of what is now known as the Congregation of the Mission, or the "Vincentians" , which he co-founded.
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Al-Shafi'i
767 - 820 (53 years)
Abū ʿAbdillāh Muḥammad ibn Idrīs ash-Shāfiʿī was a Muslim theologian, writer, and scholar, who was one of the first contributors of the principles of Islamic jurisprudence . Often referred to as 'Shaykh al-Islām', al-Shāfi‘ī was one of the four great Sunni Imams, whose legacy on juridical matters and teaching eventually led to the formation of Shafi'i school of fiqh . He was the most prominent student of Imam Malik ibn Anas, and he also served as a judge for a time in Najran. Born in Palestine , he also lived in Mecca and Medina in the Hejaz, Yemen, Baghdad in Iraq, and Egypt.
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Matthew Henry
1662 - 1714 (52 years)
Matthew Henry was a British Nonconformist minister and author who was born in Wales but spent much of his life in England. He is best known for the six-volume biblical commentary Exposition of the Old and New Testaments.
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Francisco de Vitoria
1480 - 1546 (66 years)
Francisco de Vitoria was a Spanish Roman Catholic philosopher, theologian, and jurist of Renaissance Spain. He is the founder of the tradition in philosophy known as the School of Salamanca, noted especially for his concept of just war and international law. He has in the past been described by scholars as the "father of international law", along with Alberico Gentili and Hugo Grotius, though some contemporary academics have suggested that such a description is anachronistic, since the concept of postmodern international law did not truly develop until much later. American jurist Arthur Nussbaum noted Vitoria's influence on international law as it pertained to the right to trade overseas.
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Vincent of Lérins
500 - 445 (-55 years)
Vincent of Lérins was a Gallic monk and author of early Christian writings. One example was the Commonitorium, c.434, which offers guidance in the orthodox teaching of Christianity. Suspected of semi-Pelagianism, he opposed the Augustinian model of grace and was probably the recipient of Prosper of Aquitaine's Responsiones ad Capitula Objectionum Vincentianarum. His feast day is celebrated on 24 May.
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Edgar J. Goodspeed
1871 - 1962 (91 years)
Edgar Johnson Goodspeed was an American theologian and scholar of Greek and the New Testament, and Ernest DeWitt Burton Distinguished Service Professor of the University of Chicago until his retirement. He taught for many years at the University of Chicago, whose collection of New Testament manuscripts he enriched by his searches. The University's collection is now named in his honor.
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John Keble
1792 - 1866 (74 years)
John Keble was an English Anglican priest and poet who was one of the leaders of the Oxford Movement. Keble College, Oxford, was named after him. Early life Keble was born on 25 April 1792 in Fairford, Gloucestershire, where his father, also named John Keble, was vicar of Coln St. Aldwyns. He and his brother Thomas were educated at home by their father until each went to Oxford. In 1806, Keble won a scholarship to Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He excelled in his studies and in 1810 achieved double first-class honours in both Latin and mathematics. In 1811, he won the university prizes for both the English and Latin essays and became a fellow of Oriel College.
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Johann Gerhard
1582 - 1637 (55 years)
Johannes Gerhard was a Lutheran church leader and Lutheran Scholastic theologian during the period of Orthodoxy. Biography He was born in the German city of Quedlinburg. During a dangerous illness, at the age of fourteen he came under the personal influence of Johann Arndt, author of Das wahre Christenthum, and resolved to study for the church. He entered the University of Wittenberg in 1599, and studied philosophy and theology. A relative then persuaded him to change his subject, and he studied medicine for two years. In 1603, he resumed his theological reading at Jena, and in the following year received a new impulse from J.W.
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Johann Gottfried Eichhorn
1752 - 1827 (75 years)
Johann Gottfried Eichhorn was a German Protestant theologian of the Enlightenment and an early orientalist. He was a member of the Göttingen School of History. Education and early career Born at Dörrenzimmern , in the Principality of Hohenlohe-Oehringen, Eichhorn was educated at the state school in Weikersheim, where his father was superintendent, at the gymnasium at Heilbronn and at the University of Göttingen , studying under Johann David Michaelis. In 1774 he received the rectorship of the gymnasium at Ohrdruf, in the duchy of Saxe-Gotha.
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Ulfilas
311 - 383 (72 years)
Ulfilas , also spelled Ulphilas and Orphila, all Latinized forms of the unattested Gothic form *𐍅𐌿𐌻𐍆𐌹𐌻𐌰 Wulfila, literally "Little Wolf", was a Goth of Cappadocian Greek descent who served as a bishop and missionary, participated in the Arian controversy, and is credited with the translation of the Bible into Gothic. He developed the Gothic alphabet – inventing a writing system based on the Greek alphabet – in order for the Bible to be translated into the Gothic language. Although the translation of the Bible into the Gothic language has traditionally been ascribed to Ulfilas, analysis ...
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Cotton Mather
1663 - 1728 (65 years)
Cotton Mather was a Puritan clergyman and author in a colonial New England, who wrote extensively on theological, historical, and scientific subjects. After being educated at Harvard College, he joined his father Increase as minister of the Congregationalist Old North Meeting House in Boston, Massachusetts, where he preached for the rest of his life.
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Walther Eichrodt
1890 - 1978 (88 years)
Walther Eichrodt was a German Old Testament scholar and Protestant theologian. From 1908 to 1914 he studied theology in Bethel, Greifswald and Heidelberg, obtaining his habilitation at the University of Erlangen in 1918. In 1922 he succeeded Albrecht Alt as an associate professor of history of religions and Old Testament studies at the University of Basel, where from 1934 to 1960 he taught classes as a full professor. In 1953 he was named university rector.
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József Mindszenty
1892 - 1975 (83 years)
József Mindszenty was a Hungarian cardinal of the Catholic Church who served as Archbishop of Esztergom and leader of the Catholic Church in Hungary from 1945 to 1973. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, for five decades "he personified uncompromising opposition to fascism and communism in Hungary". During World War II, he was imprisoned by the pro-Nazi Arrow Cross Party. After the war, he opposed communism and communist persecution in his country. As a result, he was tortured and given a life sentence in a 1949 show trial that generated worldwide condemnation, including a United Nation...
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Peter Canisius
1521 - 1597 (76 years)
Peter Canisius was a Dutch Jesuit priest. He became known for his strong support for the Catholic faith during the Protestant Reformation in Germany, Austria, Bohemia, Moravia, Switzerland and the British Isles. The restoration of the Catholic Church in Germany after the Protestant Reformation is largely attributed to the work there of the Society of Jesus, which he led. He is venerated in the Catholic Church as a saint and as a Doctor of the Church.
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Martin Grabmann
1875 - 1949 (74 years)
Martin Grabmann was a German Roman Catholic priest, medievalist and historian of theology and philosophy. He was a pioneer of the history of medieval philosophy and has been called "the greatest Catholic scholar of his time."
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Ekai Kawaguchi
1866 - 1945 (79 years)
was a Japanese Buddhist monk who was famed for his four journeys to Nepal and two to Tibet . He was the first recorded Japanese citizen to travel to either country. Early life and journey From an early age Kawaguchi, whose birth name was Sadajiro, was passionate about becoming a monk. In fact, his passion was unusual in a country that was quickly modernizing. He gave serious attention to the monastic vows of vegetarianism, chastity, and temperance even as other monks were happily abandoning them.
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Johann Adam Möhler
1796 - 1838 (42 years)
Johann Adam Möhler was a German Roman Catholic theologian and priest associated with the Catholic Tübingen school. He was born at Igersheim in the Bailiwick of Franconia of the Teutonic Order , and after studying philosophy and theology in the lyceum at Ellwangen, entered the University of Tübingen in 1817. Ordained to the priesthood in 1819, he was appointed to a curacy. He returned to Tübingen where he became privatdozent in 1825, an associate professor of theology in 1826 and a full professor in 1828.
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Kaufmann Kohler
1843 - 1926 (83 years)
Kaufmann Kohler was a German-born Jewish American biblical scholar and critic, theologian, Reform rabbi, and contributing editor to numerous articles of The Jewish Encyclopedia . Life and work Kaufmann Kohler was born into a family of German Jewish rabbis in Fürth, Kingdom of Bavaria. He received his rabbinical training at Hassfurt, Höchberg near Würzburg, Mainz, Altona, and at Frankfurt am Main under Samson Raphael Hirsch, and his university training at Munich, Berlin, Leipzig, and Erlangen ; his Ph.D. thesis, Der Segen Jacob's , was one of the earliest Jewish essays in the field of the high...
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Michał Sopoćko
1888 - 1975 (87 years)
Michael Sopoćko was a Polish Roman Catholic priest and professor at Vilnius University. He is best known as the spiritual director of Faustina Kowalska. He was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI in 2008.
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Raffaele Pettazzoni
1883 - 1959 (76 years)
Raffaele Pettazzoni was an Italian anthropologist, archaeologist, professor, and historian of religion. He was one of the first academics to propose a historical approach to the study of religions. He was editor-in-chief of the academic journal Numen published by Brill Academic Publishers, and president of the International Association for the History of Religions from 1950 to 1959.
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August Neander
1789 - 1850 (61 years)
Johann August Wilhelm Neander was a German theologian and church historian. Biography Neander was born in Göttingen as David Mendel. His father, Emmanuel Mendel, was said to have been a Jewish peddler. While very young, his parents separated and he moved with his mother to Hamburg. After completing grammar school , he enrolled in a gymnasium where he discovered Plato. Some of his fellow students included Wilhelm Neumann, writer Karl August Varnhagen von Ense, and poet Adelbert von Chamisso.
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Shah Waliullah Dehlawi
1703 - 1762 (59 years)
Qutb ud-Din Ahmad ibn ʿAbd-ur-Rahim al-ʿUmari ad-Dehlawi , commonly known as Shah Waliullah Dehlawi , was an Islamic Sunni scholar and Sufi of the Naqshbandi order, who is seen by his followers as a renewer. He emphasized the importance of following Sharia and believed in the unification of Hanafi and Shafi'i schools of law, aiming to reduce legal differences.
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Adam Clarke
1762 - 1832 (70 years)
Adam Clarke was a British Methodist theologian who served three times as President of the Wesleyan Methodist Conference . A biblical scholar, he published an influential Bible commentary among other works. He was a Wesleyan.
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William Ellery Channing
1780 - 1842 (62 years)
William Ellery Channing was the foremost Unitarian preacher in the United States in the early nineteenth century and, along with Andrews Norton , one of Unitarianism's leading theologians. Channing was known for his articulate and impassioned sermons and public speeches, and as a prominent thinker in the liberal theology of the day. His religion and thought were among the chief influences on the New England Transcendentalists although he never countenanced their views, which he saw as extreme. His espousal of the developing philosophy and theology of Unitarianism was displayed especially in h...
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Emil Schürer
1844 - 1910 (66 years)
Emil Schürer was a German Protestant theologian known mainly for his study of the history of the Jews around the time of Jesus' ministry. Biography Schürer was born in Augsburg. After studying at the universities of Erlangen, Berlin and Heidelberg from 1862 to 1866, he became in 1873 professor extraordinarius at Leipzig. Later on, he served as professor ordinarius at the universities of Giessen , Kiel and Göttingen . In 1876 he founded and edited the Literaturzeitung, which he edited with Adolf von Harnack from 1881 to 1910. He died after a long illness in 1910 in Göttingen.
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