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,
#2851
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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J. Vernon McGee
1904 - 1988 (84 years)
John Vernon McGee was an American ordained Presbyterian minister, pastor, Bible teacher, theologian, and radio minister. Biography Childhood, education, and early ministry McGee was born in Hillsboro, Texas, to itinerant parents, John McGee and Carrie McGee . His father held many jobs, his last one being an engineer at a cotton mill in Oklahoma, where he died in 1918 when Vernon was 14 years old. After his father's death, Vernon's family relocated to Tennessee. Before entering the ministry, Vernon worked as a bank teller.
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Justin Popović
1894 - 1979 (85 years)
Justin Popović was a Serbian Orthodox theologian, archimandrite of the Ćelije Monastery, Dostoyevsky scholar, writer, anti-communist advocate and critic of the pragmatic church ecclesiastical life.
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Lyman Beecher
1775 - 1863 (88 years)
Lyman Beecher was a Presbyterian minister, and the father of 13 children, many of whom became writers or ministers, including Harriet Beecher Stowe, Henry Ward Beecher, Charles Beecher, Edward Beecher, Isabella Beecher Hooker, Catharine Beecher, and Thomas K. Beecher.
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Otto Pfleiderer
1839 - 1908 (69 years)
Otto Pfleiderer was a German Protestant theologian. Through his writings and his lectures, he became known as one of the most influential representatives of liberal theology. Biography Pfleiderer was born at Stetten im Remstal in Württemberg. From 1857 to 1861 he studied at the University of Tübingen under Ferdinand Christian Baur, and afterwards in England and Scotland. He then entered the ministry, became tutor at Tübingen, and for a short time held a pastorate at Heilbronn . In 1870 he became chief pastor and superintendent at the University of Jena and soon afterwards professor ordinari...
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Frank Sheed
1897 - 1981 (84 years)
Francis Joseph Sheed was an Australian-born lawyer, Catholic writer, publisher, speaker, and lay theologian. He and his wife Maisie Ward were famous in their day as the names behind the imprint Sheed & Ward and as forceful public lecturers in the Catholic Evidence Guild.
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Louis Ginzberg
1873 - 1953 (80 years)
Louis Ginzberg was a Russian-born American rabbi and Talmudic scholar of Lithuanian-Jewish descent, contributing editor to numerous articles of The Jewish Encyclopedia , and leading figure in the Conservative movement of Judaism during the early 20th century. He was born in Kaunas, Vilna Governorate and died in New York City.
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Francisco Suárez
1548 - 1617 (69 years)
Francisco Suárez, was a Spanish Jesuit priest, philosopher and theologian, one of the leading figures of the School of Salamanca movement. His work is considered a turning point in the history of second scholasticism, marking the transition from its Renaissance to its Baroque phases. According to Christopher Shields and Daniel Schwartz, "figures as distinct from one another in place, time, and philosophical orientation as Leibniz, Grotius, Pufendorf, Schopenhauer and Heidegger, all found reason to cite him as a source of inspiration and influence."
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Albert Benjamin Simpson
1843 - 1919 (76 years)
Albert Benjamin Simpson , also known as A. B. Simpson, was a Canadian preacher, theologian, author, and founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance , an evangelical denomination with an emphasis on global evangelism that has been characterized as being Keswickian in theology.
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Mesrop Mashtots
361 - 440 (79 years)
Mesrop Mashtots was an early Medieval Armenian linguist, composer, theologian, statesman, and hymnologist in the Sasanian Empire. He is venerated as a saint in the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Armenian Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches. He is best known for inventing the Armenian alphabet AD, which was a fundamental step in strengthening Armenian national identity. He is also considered to be the creator of the Caucasian Albanian and Georgian alphabets by a number of scholars.
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William Law
1686 - 1761 (75 years)
William Law was a Church of England priest who lost his position at Emmanuel College, Cambridge when his conscience would not allow him to take the required oath of allegiance to the first Hanoverian monarch, King George I. Previously, William Law had given his allegiance to the House of Stuart and is sometimes considered a second-generation non-juror. Thereafter, Law continued as a simple priest and when that too became impossible without the required oath, Law taught privately and wrote extensively. His personal integrity, as well as his mystic and theological writing greatly influenced the evangelical movement of his day, as well as Enlightenment thinkers such as the writer Dr.
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Hasan al-Basri
642 - 728 (86 years)
Abu Sa'id ibn Abi al-Hasan Yasar al-Basri, often referred to as Hasan of Basra for short, or as Hasan al-Basri, was an ancient Muslim preacher, ascetic, theologian, exegete, scholar, judge, and mystic. Born in Medina in 642, Hasan belonged to the second generation of Muslims, all of whom would subsequently be referred to as the tābiʿūn in Sunni Islamic piety. He became one of "the most celebrated" of the tābiʿūn, enjoying an "acclaimed scholarly career and an even more remarkable posthumous legacy in Islamic scholarship."
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Loraine Boettner
1901 - 1990 (89 years)
Loraine Boettner was an American theologian, teacher, and author in the Reformed tradition. He is best known for his works on predestination, Roman Catholicism, and Postmillennial eschatology. Biography Boettner was born on March 7, 1901, in Linden, Missouri. His father, William Boettner, was a Christian school superintendent and had been born in Schwartzenhazel, Germany. He attended his father's church until he was eighteen, when he then joined his mother's church, the Centennial Methodist Church. Boettner attended the Lone Cedar and Fairview elementary schools, before going to Tarkio High School.
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Johann Arndt
1555 - 1621 (66 years)
Johann Arndt was a German Lutheran theologian who wrote several influential books of devotional Christianity. Although reflective of the period of Lutheran Orthodoxy, he is seen as a forerunner of Pietism, a movement within Lutheranism that gained strength in the late 17th century.
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Constantin von Tischendorf
1815 - 1874 (59 years)
Lobegott Friedrich Constantin Tischendorf was a German biblical scholar. In 1844, he discovered the world's oldest and most complete Bible dated to around the mid-4th century and called Codex Sinaiticus after Saint Catherine's Monastery at Mount Sinai, where Tischendorf discovered it.
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Zayd ibn Ali
695 - 740 (45 years)
Zayd ibn ʿAlī , also spelled Zaid, was the son of Ali ibn al-Husayn Zayn al-Abidin, and great-grandson of Ali ibn Abi Talib. He led an unsuccessful revolt against the Umayyad Caliphate, in which he died. The event gave rise to the Zaydiyya sect of Shia Islam, which holds him as the next Imam after his father Ali ibn al-Husayn Zayn al-Abidin. Zayd ibn Ali is also seen as a major religious figure by many Sunnis and was supported by the prominent Sunni jurist, Abu Hanifa, who issued a fatwa in support of Zayd against the Umayyads.
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Joseph Seiss
1823 - 1904 (81 years)
Joseph Augustus Seiss was an American theologian and Lutheran minister. He was known for his religious writings on pyramidology and dispensationalism. Life Seiss was born in Graceham, Frederick County, Maryland, to an agricultural family; his interest in religious studies reportedly began in childhood. Seiss was confirmed at age 15 as a member of the Moravian Church, and determined to pursue the ministry. Beginning in 1839, Seiss enrolled at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania for a year or two of studies, but completed his theological courses by private study. He was licensed to preach in 1842 by the synod of Virginia, and ordained to a Lutheran ministry in 1844.
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Heinrich Bullinger
1504 - 1575 (71 years)
Heinrich Bullinger was a Swiss Reformer and theologian, the successor of Huldrych Zwingli as head of the Church of Zürich and a pastor at the Grossmünster. One of the most important leaders of the Swiss Reformation, Bullinger co-authored the Helvetic Confessions and collaborated with John Calvin to work out a Reformed doctrine of the Lord's Supper.
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Valentinus
Valentinus was the best known and, for a time, most successful early Christian Gnostic theologian. He founded his school in Rome. According to Tertullian, Valentinus was a candidate for bishop but started his own group when another was chosen.
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Désiré-Joseph Mercier
1851 - 1926 (75 years)
Désiré Félicien François Joseph Mercier was a Belgian cardinal of the Catholic Church and a noted scholar. A Thomist scholar, he had several of his works translated into other European languages. He was known for his book, Les origines de la psychologie contemporaine . His scholarship gained him recognition from the Pope and he was appointed as Archbishop of Mechelen , serving from 1906 until his death, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1907.
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Heinrich Joseph Dominicus Denzinger
1819 - 1883 (64 years)
Heinrich Joseph Dominicus Denzinger was a leading German Catholic theologian and author of the Enchiridion symbolorum et definitionum , a work commonly referred to simply as Denzinger after him. Life Denzinger was born on 10 October 1819 at Liège. In 1831 his father, who was a professor at the University of Liège, took him to Würzburg, the original home of the family. Here he attended the gymnasium and studied philosophy at the university, where he received the Ph.D. degree. In 1838 he entered the Würzburg seminary, went to the German College at Rome in 1841, was ordained priest in 1844, and ...
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Harold Ockenga
1905 - 1985 (80 years)
Harold John Ockenga was a leading figure of mid-20th-century American Evangelicalism, part of the reform movement known as "Neo-Evangelicalism". A Congregational minister, Ockenga served for many years as pastor of Park Street Church in Boston, Massachusetts. He was also a prolific author on biblical, theological, and devotional topics. Ockenga helped to found the Fuller Theological Seminary and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, as well as the National Association of Evangelicals .
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Ronald Knox
1888 - 1957 (69 years)
Ronald Arbuthnott Knox was an English Catholic priest, theologian, author, and radio broadcaster. Educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford, where he earned a high reputation as a classicist, Knox was ordained as a priest of the Church of England in 1912. He was a fellow and chaplain of Trinity College, Oxford until he resigned from those positions following his conversion to Catholicism in 1917. Knox became a Catholic priest in 1918, continuing in that capacity his scholarly and literary work.
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Nicolaus Zinzendorf
1700 - 1760 (60 years)
Nikolaus Ludwig, Reichsgraf von Zinzendorf und Pottendorf was a German religious and social reformer, bishop of the Moravian Church, founder of the Herrnhuter Brüdergemeine, Christian mission pioneer and a major figure of 18th-century Protestantism.
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Josemaría Escrivá
1902 - 1975 (73 years)
Saint Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer y Albás was a Spanish Roman Catholic priest. He founded Opus Dei, an organization of laypeople and priestss dedicated to the teaching that everyone is called to holiness by God and to discover sanctity in their ordinary lives. He was canonized in 2002 by Pope John Paul II, who declared Josemaría should be "counted among the great witnesses of Christianity."
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Fakhr al-Din al-Razi
1150 - 1210 (60 years)
Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī or Fakhruddin Razi , often known by the sobriquet Sultan of the Theologians, was an influential Muslim polymath, scientist and one of the pioneers of inductive logic. He wrote various works in the fields of medicine, chemistry, physics, astronomy, cosmology, literature, theology, ontology, philosophy, history and jurisprudence. He was one of the earliest proponents and skeptics that came up with the concept of multiverse, and compared it with the astronomical teachings of Quran. A rejector of the geocentric model and the Aristotelian notions of a single universe revolvin...
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Charles Augustus Briggs
1841 - 1913 (72 years)
Charles Augustus Briggs , American Presbyterian scholar and theologian, was born in New York City, the son of Alanson Briggs and Sarah Mead Berrian. He was excommunicated from the Presbyterian Church for heresy due to his liberal theology regarding the Bible.
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Martyn Lloyd-Jones
1899 - 1981 (82 years)
David Martyn Lloyd-Jones was a Welsh Congregationalist minister and medical doctor who was influential in the Calvinist wing of the British evangelical movement in the 20th century. For almost 30 years, he was the minister of Westminster Chapel in London.
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Theodore Bar Konai
700 - 800 (100 years)
Theodore Bar Konai was a distinguished Syriac exegete and apologist of the Church of the East who seems to have flourished at the end of the eighth century. His most famous work was a book of scholia on the Old and New Testaments.
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Torgny Segerstedt
1876 - 1945 (69 years)
Torgny Karl Segerstedt was a Swedish professor and scholar of comparative religion, who later became editor-in-chief of the newspaper Göteborgs Handels- och Sjöfartstidning. He is most remembered for his uncompromising anti-Nazi stance and his efforts to alert the Swedish public to the threat of Fascism during the 1930s.
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