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,
#3651
Ernest Cadman Colwell
1901 - 1974 (73 years)
Ernest Cadman Colwell was an American biblical scholar, textual critic and palaeographer. Life After graduating from Emory College and Candler School of Theology, Colwell earned a Ph.D. in the Department of New Testament and Early Christian Literature at the University of Chicago for his 1930 dissertation on "The Character of the Greek of the Fourth Gospel: Parallels to the 'Aramaisms' of the Fourth Gospel from Epictetus and the Papyri". He then joined the Chicago faculty and served the university in many capacities, including as chief operating officer and then as president of the university under Chancellor Robert M.
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Bernard Lonergan
1904 - 1984 (80 years)
Bernard Joseph Francis Lonergan was a Canadian Jesuit priest, philosopher, and theologian, regarded by many as one of the most important thinkers of the 20th century. Lonergan's works include Insight: A Study of Human Understanding and Method in Theology , as well as two studies of Thomas Aquinas, several theological textbooks, and numerous essays, including two posthumously published essays on macroeconomics. The projected 25-volume Collected Works with the University of Toronto Press is now complete. Lonergan held appointments at the Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome; Regis College, T...
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James Alan Montgomery
1866 - 1949 (83 years)
James Alan Montgomery was an American Episcopal clergyman, Oriental scholar, and biblical scholar who was a professor of the Old Testament and Semitics at the Philadelphia Divinity School and the University of Pennsylvania.
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Arthur Nock
1902 - 1963 (61 years)
Arthur Darby Nock was an English classicist and theologian, regarded as a leading scholar in the history of religion. He was a professor at Harvard University from 1930 until his death. Early life Nock was born in Portsmouth, England in 1902 to Cornelius and Alice Mary Ann Nock. He was educated at Portsmouth Grammar School.
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G. Ernest Wright
1909 - 1974 (65 years)
George Ernest Wright , was a leading Old Testament scholar and biblical archaeologist. An expert in Ancient Near Eastern archaeology, he was especially known for his work in the study and dating of pottery. He was associated with the biblical theology movement.
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Lynn H. Hough
1877 - 1971 (94 years)
Lynn Harold Hough was an American Methodist clergyman, theologian, and academic administrator. He served as the 9th president of Northwestern University from 1919 to 1920. Early life and education Lynn H. Hough was born on September 10, 1877, in Cadiz, Ohio. He earned a bachelor's degree from Scio College in 1898 and Drew University in 1905, followed by a doctorate from Garrett Biblical Institute in 1918.
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John Leighton Stuart
1876 - 1962 (86 years)
John Leighton Stuart was a missionary educator, the first President of Yenching University and later United States ambassador to China. He was a towering figure in U.S.-Chinese relations in the first half of the 20th century, a man TIME magazine called "perhaps the most respected American in China." According to one Chinese historian, "there was no other American of his ilk in the 20th century, one who was as deeply involved in Chinese politics, culture, and education and had such an incredible influence in China."
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Edith Stein
1891 - 1942 (51 years)
Edith Stein, OCD was a German Jewish philosopher who converted to Catholicism and became a Discalced Carmelite nun. She is canonized as a martyr and saint of the Catholic Church; she is also one of six patron saints of Europe.
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Albrecht Alt
1883 - 1956 (73 years)
Albrecht Alt , was a leading German Protestant theologian. Eldest son of a Lutheran minister, he completed high school in Ansbach and studied theology at Friedrich-Alexander-University in Erlangen and the University of Leipzig. From 1907 to 1908 he was a candidate for the office of lecturer at Munich Predigerseminar . In 1908 he was a scholarship holder of the German Protestant Institute of Archaeology of the Holy Land in Jerusalem and undertook his first Palestine journey. In the same year he became a supervisor of the theological College in Greifswald. In 1909 he wrote Israel und Aegypten a...
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F. W. Grosheide
1881 - 1972 (91 years)
Frederik Willem Grosheide was a Dutch New Testament scholar. He served as Professor of New Testament at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He served as rector magnificus of that institution three times.
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Giovanni Mercati
1866 - 1957 (91 years)
Giovanni Mercati was an Italian cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as archivist of the Vatican Secret Archives and librarian of the Vatican Library from 1936 until his death, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1936.
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Ned Stonehouse
1902 - 1962 (60 years)
Ned Bernard Stonehouse was a renowned New Testament scholar. He joined J. Gresham Machen in the founding of Westminster Theological Seminary in 1929, where he worked for over thirty years. Stonehouse served as one of the 34 constituting members of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in 1936. He received the A.B. from Calvin College , the Th.B. and Th.M. from Princeton Theological Seminary , and the Ph.D. from the Free University of Amsterdam .
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Regin Prenter
1907 - 1990 (83 years)
Regin Prenter was a Danish Lutheran priest and theologian. Prenter studied theology at Copenhagen, where he belonged to the founding circle of Theologisk Oratorium and became friend of Fr Gabriel Hebert, SSM. He had candidate's degree in theology in 1931 and became priest in Hvilsager-Lime and the Aarhus Cathedral. 1935-36 he spent a year at Lincoln Theological College where he came under influence of Michael Ramsay. Later he took part in many Anglican-Lutheran conferences. During W.W.II Prenter was active in the resistance movement against the Nazis and had doctors degree in theology in 1944 about Martin Luther's theology.
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Geerhardus Vos
1862 - 1949 (87 years)
Geerhardus Johannes Vos was a Dutch-American Calvinist theologian and one of the most distinguished representatives of the Princeton Theology. He is sometimes called the father of Reformed Biblical theology.
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Henry Sloane Coffin
1877 - 1954 (77 years)
Henry Sloane Coffin was president of the Union Theological Seminary, Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, and one of the most famous ministers in the United States. He was also one of the translators of the popular hymn "O Come, O Come Emmanuel", along with John Mason Neale.
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Hermann Sasse
1895 - 1976 (81 years)
Hermann Otto Erich Sasse was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian, and author. He was considered one of the foremost confessional Lutheran theologians of the 20th century. Sasses was born on 17 July 1895 in Sonnewalde, Lower Lusatia, Germany, to Hermann Sasse, a pharmacist, and his wife Maria, née Berger. In 1913, he began reading theology and ancient philology at the University of Berlin. He was a German infantryman in World War I, in which he was one of only six men in his battalion to survive the trench warfare in Flanders.
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Jacob B. Agus
1911 - 1986 (75 years)
Jacob B. Agus was a Polish-born American liberal Conservative rabbi and theologian who played a key role in the Conservative Rabbinical Assembly. Life Jacob Agus was a leading thinker of the Conservative movement's liberal wing, heading Rabbinical Assembly committees on the sabbath, prayerbook, and ideology of the Conservative movement. He was also a rabbi of Beth El Congregation in Baltimore, Maryland, and a promoter of interfaith communication, which he referred to as "dialogue" or "trialogue."
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Wilbur M. Smith
1894 - 1976 (82 years)
Wilbur Moorehead Smith was an American theologian and one of the founding members of Fuller Theological Seminary. Early life Smith was born in Chicago on June 8, 1894. His father, Thomas Smith, was a successful fruit trader. His mother, Sadie Sanborn Smith, read a lot and had a large library: her father was a follower of the evangelist R. A. Torrey. She taught her son to read when he was five. He developed a love of books that remained with him, and he owned more than 25,000 books.
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Hans Rookmaaker
1922 - 1977 (55 years)
Henderik Roelof "Hans" Rookmaaker was a Dutch Christian scholar, professor, and author who wrote and lectured on art theory, art history, music, philosophy, and religion. In 1948 he met Christian theologian Francis Schaeffer and became a member of L'Abri in Switzerland. Rookmaaker and his wife Anky opened a Dutch branch of L'Abri in 1971.
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Ferdinand Cavallera
1875 - 1954 (79 years)
Ferdinand Cavallera was born in Puy-en-Velay, France, of parents of Piedmontese origin. He joined the Society of Jesus in 1892 and became a biblical scholar, textual critic, and publisher on patristics.
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Leonard Feeney
1897 - 1978 (81 years)
Leonard Edward Feeney was an American Jesuit Catholic priest, poet, lyricist, and essayist. He articulated an interpretation of the Roman Catholic doctrine extra Ecclesiam nulla salus . He took the position that baptism of blood and baptism of desire are unavailing and that therefore no non-Catholics will be saved. Those positions are called, after him, Feeneyism.
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Charles George Herbermann
1840 - 1916 (76 years)
Charles George Herbermann was a German-American professor and historian. Biography Charles George Herbermann was born in Saerbeck near Münster, Westphalia, Prussia on 8 December 1840, the son of George Herbermann and Elizabeth Stipp. He arrived in the United States in 1851, and seven years later graduated at College of St. Francis Xavier, New York City. He was appointed professor of Latin language and Literature and librarian at the College of the City of New York. For more than 50 years, he was immersed amidst various issues involved with Catholicism. He was president of the Catholic Club and of the United States Catholic Historical Society .
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Charles R. Erdman Sr.
1866 - 1960 (94 years)
Charles Rosenbury Erdman Sr. was an American Presbyterian minister and professor of theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. Early life and education Erdman was born on July 20, 1866, in Fayetteville, New York, to William J. Erdman, a leader in the premillennialist and holiness movements of the late nineteenth century. He earned his B.A. from the College of New Jersey and went on to study at Princeton Theological Seminary from 1887 to 1891. Erdman was ordained on May 8, 1891, in the Presbytery of Philadelphia North, PCUSA.
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J. Rendel Harris
1852 - 1941 (89 years)
James Rendel Harris was an English biblical scholar and curator of manuscripts, who was instrumental in bringing back to light many Syriac Scriptures and other early documents. His contacts at the Saint Catherine's Monastery on Mount Sinai in Egypt enabled twin sisters Agnes Smith Lewis and Margaret Dunlop Gibson to discover there the Sinaitic Palimpsest, the oldest Syriac New Testament document in existence. He subsequently accompanied them on a second trip, with Robert Bensly and Francis Crawford Burkitt, to decipher the palimpsest. He himself discovered there other manuscripts . Harris's Biblical Fragments from Mount Sinai appeared in 1890.
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Clement Rogers
1866 - 1949 (83 years)
Clement Francis Rogers was an English theologian, who was professor of pastoral theology at King's College London. Rogers, the son of Professor James Rogers, was born in 1866 and educated at Westminster School and Jesus College, Oxford. He was ordained deacon in 1890 and priest in 1891, and became a lecturer at King's College London in 1906 having spent time working in parishes in Yorkshire and London. He became a professor in 1919, retiring in 1932 and becoming an emeritus professor. He served as Chaplain of King's College London from 1932-1936. His works included books based on his experi...
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Clarence Skinner
1881 - 1949 (68 years)
Clarence Russell Skinner was a Universalist minister, teacher, and dean of the Crane School of Theology at Tufts University. Born on March 23, 1881, in Brooklyn, New York, he graduated from St. Lawrence University in 1904 with a BA and was ordained in 1906. He served as minister at the Universalist Church in Mont Vernon, New York from 1906 to 1911, Grace Universalist Church in Lowell, Massachusetts, from 1911 to 1914, and the First Universalist Church of Medford, Massachusetts, from 1917 to 1920. Clarence Skinner was on faculty at Crane Theological School, Tufts University as Professor of Applied Christianity from 1914 to 1933, and served as dean from 1933 to 1945.
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Francis Jeremiah Connell
1888 - 1967 (79 years)
Francis Jeremiah Connell, C.Ss.R. , was a Redemptorist priest, professor, author, and noted Catholic American theologian. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and died in Washington, D.C. Early life Born to Timothy and Mary , Francis attended the Boston public school system from 1893 to 1901. From 1901 to 1905, he attended Boston Latin School.
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Paul Wilhelm Schmidt
1845 - 1917 (72 years)
Paul Wilhelm Schmidt was a German theologian who taught mostly in Basel. To this day he is considered one of the most important Swiss representatives of the liberal Protestant direction in theology and church at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century.
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Ibrahim al-Nazzam
760 - 835 (75 years)
Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm Ibn Sayyār Ibn Hāni‘ an-Naẓẓām was an Arab Mu'tazilite theologian and poet. He was a nephew of the Mu'tazilite theologian Abu al-Hudhayl al-'Allaf, and al-Jahiz was one of his students. Al-Naẓẓām served at the courts of the Abbasid Caliph al-Mamun. His theological doctrines and works are lost except for a few fragments.
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Jakob Merten
1809 - 1872 (63 years)
Jakob Merten was a German Catholic theologian born in Wittlich. He studied theology in Trier, where in 1833 he received his ordination. Subsequently, he became a chaplain in Trier, where he worked closely with Franz Peter Knoodt . From 1843 to 1868 he was a professor of philosophy at the Episcopal Seminary in Trier.
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Guido de Bres
1522 - 1567 (45 years)
Guido de Bres was a Walloon pastor, Protestant reformer and theologian, a student of John Calvin and Theodore Beza in Geneva. He was born in Mons, County of Hainaut, Southern Netherlands, and was executed at Valenciennes. De Bres compiled and published the Walloon Confession of Faith known as the Belgic Confession still in use today in Belgium and the Netherlands. It is also used by many Reformed Churches all over the world.
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Morris Joseph
1848 - 1930 (82 years)
Morris David Joseph studied at Jews' College, London, and in 1868 was appointed rabbi of the North London Synagogue; in 1874 he went to the Old Hebrew Congregation of Liverpool, where he officiated as preacher until 1882. He became delegate senior minister of the West London Synagogue in 1893, when David Woolf Marks retired from active service. Joseph published a collection of sermons, The Ideal in Judaism, London, 1893, and a valuable popular work on Jewish theology, Judaism as Creed and Life, in 1903. His position on Jewish religious belief and practice was conservative, midway between Refo...
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Adriaan de Buck
1892 - 1959 (67 years)
Adriaan de Buck was an eminent Dutch Egyptologist. From 1939 he was Professor of Egyptology at Leiden University. Life and work De Buck read theology in Leiden with Pierre Daniel Chantepie de la Saussaye and William Brede Kristensen. He studied several Semitic languages , and specialized in ancient Egyptian which he first read with Pieter Boeser. He then continued his studies in Egyptology in Göttingen and Berlin with Adolf Erman and Kurt Sethe.
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Leopold Ackermann
1771 - 1831 (60 years)
Leopold Ackermann , known by his cloistral name as Petrus Fourerius, was a professor of exegesis. He entered on 10 October 1790 in the choral order of Klosterneuburg and studied from 1791-1795 in Vienna. In the following, he became priest and professor for oriental languages at the Stiftshof in Vienna, in 1800 also librarian. He earned his doctorate in theology in 1802, and in 1806 a professorship in exegesis, continuing for 25 years.
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Karl Bornhäuser
1868 - 1947 (79 years)
Karl Bornhäuser was a German New Testament theologian. He studied theology at the universities of Halle and Greifswald, where he was a student of Hermann Cremer. He worked as a clergyman in Sinsheim and Karlsruhe , and as a regional pastor in Rastatt . In 1902 he became an associate professor of systematic and practical theology at the University of Greifswald, and from 1907 to 1933, he taught classes as a full professor at the University of Marburg. From 1912 onward, he was a member of the consistory in Kassel.
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Johann Georg Conrad Oberdieck
1794 - 1880 (86 years)
Johann Georg Conrad Oberdieck was a German clergyman and pomologist. From 1812 to 1815 he studied theology at the University of Göttingen, and following graduation, served as a subconrector at Michaelisschule in Lüneburg. Several years later he became a pastor in Bardowick, and afterwards worked as an ecclesiastical superintendent in Sulingen and Nienburg/Weser . In 1853 he relocated to the community of Jeinsen as a superintendent.
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Samuel Preiswerk
1799 - 1871 (72 years)
Samuel Preiswerk was a Swiss Reformed Lutheran theologian, pastor and church hymn poet. He is the maternal grandfather of Carl Jung. Biography Preiswerk was born in 1799, in Basel, Switzerland, the son of Alexander Preiswerk and Anna Maria Preiswerk. He studied in Basel and Erlangen. In Biel-Benken in 1822 he found work as a vicar. Two years later he became pastor at an orphanage and in 1828 a teacher in a missionary house. During this period he wrote some hymns, which later lead to international recognition. In 1830 he became a pastor in Muttenz. He was removed as pastor when he refused to conduct pro-revolution prayers.
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William Buell Sprague
1795 - 1876 (81 years)
William Buell Sprague was an American Congregational and Presbyterian clergyman and compiler of Annals of the American Pulpit , a comprehensive biographical dictionary of the leading American Protestant Christian ministers who died before 1850.
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Johann Matthäus Meyfart
1590 - 1642 (52 years)
Johann Matthäus Meyfart, also Johann Matthaeus Meyfahrt, Mayfart was a German Lutheran theologist, educator, academic teacher, hymn writer and minister. He was an opponent fighter of witch trials. Career Meyfart was born in Jena, the son of a minister, and studied at the University of Jena from 1608, first the liberal arts graduating in 1603, then theology, continued at the University of Wittenberg from 1614. He taught from 1617 at the Gymnasium in Coburg, serving as its Rektor from 1623.
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John Craig
1663 - 1731 (68 years)
John Craig was a Scottish mathematician and theologian. Biography Born in Dumfries and educated at the University of Edinburgh, Craig moved to England and became a vicar in the Church of England. A friend of Isaac Newton, he wrote several minor works about the new calculus.
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Friedrich Samuel Gottfried Sack
1738 - 1817 (79 years)
Friedrich Samuel Gottfried Sack was Prussian theologian, court preacher, and Church governor. Life Friedrich Samuel Gottfried Sack was born in Magdeburg in the Prussian Duchy of Magdeburg on 4 September 1738, the eldest son of August Friedrich Wilhelm Sack by his second wife. His mother was descended of a French refugee family, which explains a fondness which Sack had for the French language and literature.
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Johann Michael Feder
1753 - 1824 (71 years)
Johann Michael Feder was a German Roman Catholic theologian. Life He studied in the episcopal seminary of Würzburg from 1772–1777; in the latter year he was ordained priest and promoted to the licentiate in theology. For several years Feder was chaplain of the Julius hospital; in 1785 he was appointed extraordinary professor of theology and Oriental languages at the University of Würzburg. He was created a Doctor of Divinity in 1786; director of the university library 1791, ordinary professor of theology and censor of theological publications, 1795.
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Nathanael Burwash
1839 - 1918 (79 years)
Nathanael Burwash was a Canadian Methodist minister and university administrator. Early life and education Rev. Nathanael Burwash was born in St. Andrews East, Lower Canada, on 25 July 1839, the eldest son of the devout Methodists Adam Burwash and Anne Taylor. He was raised on a farm in Baltimore, Canada , to which his family moved in 1844. In 1859 he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Victoria College which was then located in Cobourg, Ontario, and was ordained by the Wesleyan Methodist Church in 1864. He later studied at Yale College and the Garrett Biblical Institute.
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Girolamo Seripando
1493 - 1563 (70 years)
Girolamo Seripando was an Augustinian friar, Italian theologian and cardinal. Life He was of noble birth, and intended by his parents for the legal profession. After their death, however, at the age of fourteen, he entered the Augustinian Order, at Viterbo, where he studied Greek and Hebrew as well as philosophy and theology.
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Juan Luis Maneiro
1744 - 1802 (58 years)
Juan Luis Maneiro was a Mexican Jesuit teacher, scholar, biographer, theologian, and poet. After the expulsion of the Jesuits from Spanish provinces , he went to Italy, where he wrote Latin biographies of illustrious Mexican Jesuits.
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Povilas Jakubėnas
1871 - 1953 (82 years)
Povilas Jakubėnas was a Lithuanian Calvinist clergyman, general superintendent of the Lithuanian branch of the Reformed Church during the interbellum, professor of theology, Lithuanian book smuggler during his student times.
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Juan Crespí
1721 - 1782 (61 years)
Joan Crespí or Juan Crespí was a Franciscan missionary and explorer of Las Californias. Biography A native of Majorca, Crespí entered the Franciscan order at the age of seventeen. He came to New Spain in 1749, and accompanied explorers Francisco Palóu and Junípero Serra. In 1767 he went to the Baja California Peninsula and was placed in charge of the Misión La Purísima Concepción de Cadegomó.
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Francesco Giorgi
1466 - 1540 (74 years)
Francesco Giorgi Veneto was an Italian Franciscan friar, and author of the work De harmonia mundi totius from 1525. In it Giorgio proposed an idea of the Universe created according to the universal system of proportion, which may be studied as laws of mathematics used by architects. The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy describes him as 'idiosyncratic'. He wrote also In Scripturam Sacram Problemata .
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Cornelius van Steenoven
1661 - 1725 (64 years)
Cornelis van Steenoven was a Dutch Roman Catholic priest who later served as the seventh Old Catholic Archbishop of Utrecht from 1724 to 1725. Consecrated without the permission of the pope, Steenoven was at the center of the 18th-century controversy between national churches and what many considered to be the overreaching powers of the papacy.
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Edward Cardwell
1787 - 1861 (74 years)
Edward Cardwell was an English theologian also noted for his contributions to the study of English church history. In addition to his scholarly work, he filled various administrative positions in the University of Oxford.
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