Search People Result | Academic Influence

Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines

Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.

Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.

We also provide custom rankings of people by discipline as well as interviews with influential academics who are currently active.

To use this tool, select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) relevant to your research, and specify influential academics by history, world, or US. Even results that are counterintuitive are often enlightening (our algorithm always picks up a signal).

Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …

See additional learning tools, study tips, features on campus life and much more at our Student Resources Headquarters.

Search Influential People

Person Name

School

Gender

Country

Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Religious Studies,

#3801

Asa Burton

1752 - 1836 (84 years)

Asa Burton was an American minister and theologian. Asa Burton was born on August 25, 1752, in Stonington, Connecticut, to Rachel and Jacob Burton, the sixth child in a family of thirteen. His family moved to Preston when he was very young. When he was about fourteen, his father moved again to Norwich, Vermont.

#3802

Friedrich Wilhelm Bautz

1906 - 1979 (73 years)

Friedrich Wilhelm Bautz was a Protestant theologian and writer. Life Bautz studied theology in Münster, Bethel , Berlin and Tübingen. From February 1939 he was pastor in the Franz Arndt-Haus, a war invalid home in Volmarstein, and later pastor in Kriescht and Annarode. From 1954 to 1958 he worked for the Neukirchener Verlagsgesellschaft as a publishing editor and at the same time as a parish representative at the parish of the Dorfkirche Stiepel. In 1959 he took over a sick leave in Heven . In the Stadt- und Landesbibliothek Dortmund as well as in the Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Münst...

#3803

Friedrich Wilhelm Ghillany

1807 - 1876 (69 years)

Friedrich Wilhelm Ghillany was a German Lutheran theologian, historian, librarian and publicist. His rationalist outlook, influenced by Georg Friedrich Daumer, forced him to retire from his post as vicar at St. Aegidius parish in Nuremberg. He became city librarian in Nuremberg in 1841. His early publications are pamphlets against Lutheran bigotry, specifically agitating against the Old Lutheran president of the Lutheran assembly in Munich, Friedrich von Roth. In 1855, Ghillany moved to Munich, but he did not succeed in finding employment as a civil servant or diplomat, and he went on to publish multi-volume works on European history.

#3804

John Davies

1567 - 1644 (77 years)

John Davies, Mallwyd was one of Wales's leading scholars of the late Renaissance. He wrote a Welsh grammar and dictionary. He was also a translator and editor and an ordained minister of the Church of England.

#3805

William Ince

1825 - 1910 (85 years)

William Ince was a British theologian. He was Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford, from 1878. Life Ince was educated at King's College School and Lincoln College, Oxford, where he took first-class honours in Literae Humaniores .

#3806

Otto of Bamberg

Otto of Bamberg

1060 - 1139 (79 years)

Otto of Bamberg was a German missionary and papal legate who converted much of medieval Pomerania to Christianity. He was the bishop of Bamberg from 1102 until his death. He was canonized in 1189. Early life Three biographies of Otto were written in the decades after his death. Wolfger of Prüfening wrote his between 1140 and 1146 at Prüfening Abbey; Ebo of Michelsberg wrote between 1151 and 1159

#3807

John Hales

1584 - 1656 (72 years)

John Hales was an English cleric, theologian and writer. An eminent if modest and critic, his posthumous works earned him the title of the "Ever-memorable". Early life He was born in St. James' parish, Bath, on 19 April 1584. His father, John Hales, had an estate at Highchurch, near Bath, and was steward to the Horner family. After passing through the Bath grammar school, Hales went on 16 April 1597 as a scholar of Corpus Christi College, Oxford and graduated B.A. on 9 July 1603. He came to the notice of Sir Henry Savile, and was elected as a fellow of Merton College in 1605. He took orders; shone as a preacher, though not for his voice; and graduated M.

#3808

Basil Manly Jr.

1825 - 1892 (67 years)

Basil Manly Jr. was an American Baptist minister and educator. He was one of a group of theologians instrumental in the formation of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in South Carolina. Early life and education Basil Manly Jr. was born December 19, 1825, in Edgefield District, South Carolina to Basil Manly Sr. , a prominent Baptist preacher and educator. He and his family moved to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, when Manly Jr. was 12 years old, as his father was president of the University of Alabama for nearly 20 years. He grew up in a planter's family; his father enslaved 40 people. In Tuscaloosa, Manly Jr.

#3809

Maximilian van der Sandt

1578 - 1656 (78 years)

Maximilian van der Sandt, S.J. , known as Sandaus or Sandaeus, was a noted Dutch Jesuit theologian. Van der Sandt was born in Amsterdam, then part of the Spanish Netherlands. He entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus, 21 November 1597; he taught philosophy at Würzburg and Sacred Scripture at Mainz. He became rector of the episcopal seminary at Würzburg.

#3810

Erasmus D. McMaster

1806 - 1866 (60 years)

Erasmus Darwin McMaster, D.D. was a nineteenth-century American Presbyterian pastor, academic and theologian who served as president of Hanover College and Miami University. Along with Henry Ward Beecher, McMaster was one of the most vocal Presbyterian anti-slavery advocates in Indiana.

#3811

Henri de Saint-Ignace

1630 - 1719 (89 years)

Henri de Saint-Ignace was a Belgian Carmelite theologian. Life A professor of moral theology, de Saint-Ignace participated in the controversies of his time on grace and free will. He professing himself a follower of Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas, but was also influenced by the views of Baius and Jansenius.

#3812

John Hoppus

1789 - 1875 (86 years)

John Hoppus FRS , was an English Congregational minister, author, Fellow of the Royal Society, abolitionist and educational reformer. He was appointed the first Chair of Logic and Philosophy of Mind at the newly formed London University , a position he secured and held against his formidable opponents from 1829 to 1866.

#3813

Henricus Franciscus Bracq

Henricus Franciscus Bracq

1804 - 1888 (84 years)

Henricus Franciscus Bracq was the 22nd bishop of Ghent, Belgium. Life Bracq was born in Ghent on 26 February 1804. He was ordained to the priesthood on 2 August 1827. From 1830 to 1864 he taught Sacred Scripture at the Major Seminary of Ghent, where he opposed the spread of the opinions of Lamennais. He was one of the founding editors of the Mémorial du Clergé and of De Vlaming, and an active contributor to the Journal historique et littéraire published in Liège. From 1836 to 1864 he was also confessor to the refounded Visitation Sisters of Ghent.

#3814

Heinrich Grüber

1891 - 1975 (84 years)

Heinrich Grüber was a Reformed theologian, pacifist and opponent of Nazism. Life Until 1933 Heinrich Grüber was born on 24 June 1891 in Stolberg in the Prussian Rhine Province . His parents were the teacher Ernst Grüber and Alwine Grüber, née Cleven from Gulpen, living in the Protestant diaspora among an else prevailingly Catholic population.

#3815

Abner of Burgos

1270 - 1347 (77 years)

Abner of Burgos was a Jewish philosopher, a convert to Christianity and a polemical writer against his former religion. Known after his conversion as Alfonso of Valladolid or "Master Alfonso." Life As a student he acquired a certain mastery in Biblical and Talmudical studies, to which he added an intimate acquaintance with Peripatetic philosophy and astrology. What we know of his biography comes primarily from his own comments in his Moreh Zedek/Mostrador de justicia. According to that work, he stated that his religious doubts arose in 1295 when he treated a number of Jews for distress following their involvement in the failed messianic movement in Avila.

#3816

Heinrich Joseph Floss

1819 - 1881 (62 years)

Heinrich Joseph Floß, or Floss , was a church historian and moral theologian in the 19th century. As a professor of theology at the University of Bonn, he edited a collection of the work of John Duns Scotus, the Franciscan theologian. During the Kulturkampf, Floss was constrained by the anti-Catholic legislation.

#3817

César Malan

1787 - 1864 (77 years)

Henri Abraham César Malan was a Swiss Protestant minister and hymn-writer. Life Malan was born in Geneva, Republic of Geneva and was a believing Christian from childhood. After completing his education, he went to Marseilles, France, intending to learn business. But soon after, he entered the by then rationalistic Geneva Academy in preparation for the ministry. He was ordained in 1810.

#3818

John Henry Augustus Bomberger

1817 - 1890 (73 years)

John Henry Augustus Bomberger was a German Reformed clergyman. He was president of Ursinus College, and did a translation and condensation of the Schaff–Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge.

#3819

William Julius Mann

1819 - 1892 (73 years)

William Julius Mann was an American Lutheran theologian and author, born in Stuttgart, Germany. He studied there and at Tübingen and was ordained in 1841. Three years later he was invited by his friend Dr. Philip Schaff to come to the United States and settled in Philadelphia. There he was assistant pastor and pastor of St. Michael's and Zion's Church. From its establishment in 1864 almost to his death he was professor of symbolics at the Lutheran Theological Seminary. With Dr. Schaff he edited Der deutsche Kirchenfreund. His daughter, Emma T. Mann, wrote his Life, . His german and englis...

#3820

John Grisdale

1845 - 1922 (77 years)

John Grisdale was an Anglican colonial bishop in the late 19th century. Grisdale was born in Bolton, Lancashire, on 25 June 1845 and educated at the Missionary College in Islington. He was ordained in 1870.

#3821

Nicholas Magni

1355 - 1435 (80 years)

Nicholas Magni was a late medieval theologian, a professor at Prague University and Heidelberg University. Life Born in Jawor, Silesia, he studied in Vienna and in Prague , where he lived in a Polish college and represented Polish nation. He studied under professor Matthew of Krakow . Before 1392 he received priestly ordination. From 1392 he served as a priest of St. Gallus Church in Prague - Old Town, from about 1395 he started with lectures on theology from 1397 as a professor of theology and rector of Prague University. In 1402, he went to Heidelberg, where he was likewise made rector in 1406.

#3822

Georg Heinrich Häberlin

1644 - 1699 (55 years)

Georg Heinrich Häberlin was a Lutheran theologian of Germany. Life Georg Heinrich Häberlin was born at Stuttgart on 30 September 1644. He studied at Tübingen, became deacon in 1668, doctor and professor of theology in 1681, member of the consistory and preacher in 1692, and died on 20 August 1699.

#3823

Ilsley Boone

1879 - 1968 (89 years)

Ilsley Silias Boone was a charismatic speaker, a powerful organizer, a magazine publisher and the founding father of the American Sunbathing Association later reorganized as the American Association for Nude Recreation . As a publisher he distributed the first nudist magazine in the United States. That publication eventually led to a challenge to the U.S. Postal Service's ban against sending obscene materials through the mail. Boone took his challenge all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court which struck down the ban.

#3824

Innocent

1600 - 1683 (83 years)

Innokenty Gizel was a Prussian-born historian, writer, and political and ecclesiastic figure, who had adopted Orthodox Christianity and made a substantial contribution to Ukrainian culture. Innokentiy Gizel was a rector of the Kyivan Theological School. In 1656, he was appointed archmandrite of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra. Innokentiy Gizel is known to have supported the unification of Ukraine and autonomy of the Kyiv clergy, simultaneously. Innokentiy Gizel is generally credited for writing the Synopsis in 1674, but some researchers deny his authorship.

#3825

Pierre François le Courayer

Pierre François le Courayer

1681 - 1776 (95 years)

Pierre François le Courayer was a French Catholic theological writer, for many years an expatriate in England. Life Pierre François le Courayer was born at Rouen. While canon regular and librarian of the abbey of St Genevieve at Paris, he conducted a correspondence with Archbishop William Wake on the subject of episcopal succession in England, which supplied him with material for his work, Dissertation sur la validité des ordinations des Anglais et sur la succession des évéques de l'Eglise anglicane, avec les preuves justificatives des faits avancés , published anonymously in 1723 with a fake publication location of Brussels.

#3826

William Barret

1561 - 1659 (98 years)

William Barret was an English divine. Life He matriculated as a pensioner of Trinity College, Cambridge, on 1 February 1579–80. He proceeded to his M.A. degree in 1588, and was soon afterwards elected fellow of Caius College.

#3827

Johann Jahn

1750 - 1816 (66 years)

Johann Jahn was a German orientalist. Biography He studied at the Faculty of Philosophy of University of Olomouc, and in 1772 began his theological studies at the Premonstratensian convent of Bruck, near Znaim. Having been ordained in 1775, he for a short time held a cure at Misslitz, but was soon recalled to Bruck as professor of Oriental languages and Biblical hermeneutics.

#3828

Johann Pistorius the Elder

1504 - 1583 (79 years)

Johann Pistorius was a German Protestant minister and Protestant reformer. From 1541 he was the Superintendent at the church in Nidda in Hesse. Along with Philipp Melanchthon and Martin Bucer, Pistorius was appointed by Charles V to represent the Protestants at the Diet of Regensburg in 1541. He also participated in the Colloquy of Worms in 1557.

#3829

Honoratus a Sancta Maria

1651 - 1729 (78 years)

Honoratus a Sancta Maria was a French Discalced Carmelite, known as a prolific controversialist. His secular name was Blaise Vauxelles , and he was known also by the French version of his name in religion, Honoré de Sainte-Marie.

#3830

Lawrence Humphrey

Lawrence Humphrey

1527 - 1590 (63 years)

Lawrence Humphrey DD was an English theologian, who was President of Magdalen College, Oxford, and Dean successively of Gloucester and Winchester. Biography Humphrey was born at Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire, England. He was first educated at the University of Cambridge.

#3831

Henry Nutcombe Oxenham

1829 - 1888 (59 years)

Henry Nutcombe Oxenham was an English ecclesiologist, theologian, author and translator. Originally ordained in the Church of England, he later converted to the Roman Catholic faith and was received into that Church.

#3832

Serafino Porrecta

1536 - 1614 (78 years)

Serafino Porrecta was an Italian Dominican theologian. His family name was Capponi; he was called a Porrecta from his place of birth. He is best known as a commentator on the Summa of Thomas Aquinas; he also wrote commentaries on the books of the Old and New Testaments.

#3833

Matthieu Petit-Didier

1659 - 1728 (69 years)

Matthieu Petit-Didier was a French Benedictine theologian and ecclesiastical historian. Life After studying at the Jesuit college at Nancy he joined the Benedictine Congregation of St-Vannes, in 1675, at the monastery of St-Mihiel. In 1682 he was appointed professor of philosophy and theology.

#3834

Henry Hickman

1629 - 1692 (63 years)

Henry Hickman was an English ejected minister and controversialist. Life A native of Worcestershire, he was educated at St Catharine Hall, Cambridge, where he proceeded B.A. in 1648. At the end of 1647, he entered Magdalen Hall, Oxford, and the next year obtained by favour of the parliamentary visitors a demyship and subsequently a fellowship of Magdalen College. After graduating M.A. on 14 March 1649, he was licensed as a preacher and officiated at St Aldate's Church in Oxford and afterwards at Brackley in Northamptonshire. On 29 May 1658, he was admitted B.D.

#3835

Benjamin Pâquet

Benjamin Pâquet

1832 - 1900 (68 years)

Benjamin Pâquet was a French-Canadian Roman Catholic priest and educator. He was an influential and controversial figure in 19th century Quebec religious politics, making numerous enemies amongst the French-Canadian ultra-montane elite of the period. Three times his name was cited for potential bishopry, but each time his opponents successfully lobbied against his nomination or the decision makers settled on a less controversial choice.

#3836

Henry Hayes Vowles

1843 - 1905 (62 years)

Henry Hayes Vowles was an English author, theologian and a Wesleyan Minister. He also published religious poetry. Parents He was the son of Henry Vowles of Bath and Mary Yeoman Harding of "The Chancellor" Wanstrow, Somerset. The parents of Henry Vowles were James Vowles of 2 Quiet Street Bath, and Martha Edney . James Vowles was the son of William Vowles of Walcot and Hannah Hancock. William Vowles was the son of James Vowles and Martha Jane married at Bath Abbey on 6 August 1728.

#3837

John Harry Miller

1869 - Present (157 years)

John Harry Miller FRSE CBE was a Scottish minister and theologian who served as Principal of St Mary's College at St Andrews University. Life He was born on 4 November 1869 at 1 Clayton Terrace in Westercraigs in Glasgow the son of John Ritchie Miller of McHaffie, Forsyth & Miller, ironfounders, and his wife Georgina Caird. He was educated at the Albany Academy.

#3838

Hugo Bernhard Rahamägi

1886 - 1941 (55 years)

Hugo Bernhard Rahamägi was a prominent Estonian prelate and politician who served as Minister for Education in the Estonian government between 1924 and 1925 and later as Bishop of Tallinn and Primate of the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church from 1934 till 1939.

#3839

Charles H. Stonestreet

Charles H. Stonestreet

1813 - 1885 (72 years)

Charles Henry Stonestreet was an American Catholic priest and Jesuit who served in prominent religious and academic positions, including as provincial superior of the Jesuit Maryland Province and president of Georgetown University. He was born in Maryland and attended Georgetown University, where he co-founded the Philodemic Society. After entering the Society of Jesus and becoming a professor at Georgetown, he led St. John's Literary Institution and St. John the Evangelist Church in Frederick, Maryland. He was appointed president of Georgetown University in 1851, holding the office for two years, during which time he oversaw expansion of the university's library.

#3840

Gerald Fitzgerald

1894 - 1969 (75 years)

Gerald Michael Cushing Fitzgerald, s.P. was an American Catholic priest known for founding the Congregation of the Servants of the Paraclete, which operates centers for priests dealing with challenges such as alcoholism, substance abuse and sexual misconduct.

#3841

Isaac Nordheimer

1809 - 1842 (33 years)

Isaac Nordheimer was a Jewish American Hebrew scholar who also studied Syriac and other Near East languages. He is notable as an early Jewish scholar in the United States, as well as being a linguist who was also educated in the Rabbinic tradition.

#3842

Christoph Wölfflin

1625 - 1688 (63 years)

Christoph Wölfflin was a Lutheran theologian of Germany. Life Christoph Wölfflin was born in Würtemberg, either at Owen, or at Kirchheim unter Teck, on 23 December 1625. He moved to Tübingen and studied at the university there, was in 1651 deacon at Aurach, in 1657 at Tübingen, in 1659 professor of Greek, and in 1660 was made doctor and professor of theology.

#3843

Marutha of Tikrit

565 - 649 (84 years)

Marutha of Tikrit was the Grand Metropolitan of the East and head of the Syriac Orthodox Church of the East from 628 or 629 until his death in 649. He is commemorated as a saint by the Syriac Orthodox Church.

#3844

Lewis Bevens Schenck

1898 - 1985 (87 years)

Lewis Bevens Schenck was an American theologian. He is best known for his 1940 work, The Presbyterian Doctrine of Children in the Covenant: An Historical Study of the Significance of Infant Baptism in the Presbyterian Church in America, in which he examined the doctrine of covenant succession. Robert S. Rayburn notes that Schenck "accounts for the modern eclipse of the Reformed doctrine of covenant succession by the dramatic impact of the Great Awakening and the resultant revivalismism." However, according to Thomas Trouwborst, Schenck's book has led to a revival of the "historic Presbyterian...

#3845

Gregory Paul of Brzeziny

1525 - 1591 (66 years)

Grzegorz Paweł z Brzezin , was a Socinian writer and theologian, one of the principal creators and propagators of radical wing of the Polish Brethren, and author of several of the first theological works in Polish, which helped to the development of literary Polish.

#3846

Jean Nicolaï

1594 - 1673 (79 years)

Jean Nicolaï was a French Dominican theologian and controversialist. About Entering the order at the age of twelve, he made his religious profession in 1612, studied philosophy and theology in the convent of St. James at Paris. and in 1632 obtained his doctorate in theology at the Sorbonne. Nicolaï taught in various houses of the Dominican order, and became the regent of the Paris Dominicans. Besides Latin and Greek he was conversant with Italian, Spanish, and Hebrew.

#3847

Marcus Eremita

360 - 430 (70 years)

Marcus Eremita, Mark the Ascetic or Marcus the Ascetic was a Christian theologian, saint, and ascetic writer of the fifth century AD. Mark is rather an ascetic than a dogmatic writer. He is content to accept dogmas from the Church; his interest is in the spiritual life as it should be led by monks. He is practical rather than mystic, belongs to the Antiochene School and shows himself to be a disciple of John Chrysostom.

#3848

Ernst Teichmann

1869 - 1919 (50 years)

Ernst Gustav Georg Teichmann was a German theologian and zoologist known for his investigations in the field of the tsetse fly and for his books on birth, fertilisation, heredity and death. Life and work He studied theology in Lausanne, Giessen, Berlin and Marburg, obtaining his license in theology at Bonn in 1896. From 1898 to 1900, he studied zoology at the University of Würzburg, afterwards continuing his education in zoology at Naples and Marburg. In 1909–10 he worked at the Institute for Maritime and Tropical Diseases in Hamburg, and from 1911 onward, served as a hydrozoologist and departmental head at the institute for hygiene in Frankfurt.

#3849

Thomas of Edessa

Thomas of Edessa was a theologian of the Church of the East who wrote several works in Syriac, most of them lost. Thomas was educated in Edessa. There he taught Greek to the future patriarch, Aba. He later travelled with Aba around the Roman Empire, including to its capital, Constantinople. He studied under Aba at the school of Nisibis in the Persian Empire. He also taught at Nisibis. He may have died in Constantinople or on his return journey to Nisibis.

#3850

Christopher Anderson

Christopher Anderson

1782 - 1852 (70 years)

Christopher Anderson was a Scottish theological writer and preacher. Biography He was born at Edinburgh, 19 February 1782, the son of William Anderson, a merchant. He began life in an insurance office, but gave up his secular work and studied for the ministry, with the aim of becoming a missionary: his background was formed by followers of Robert and James Haldane. Weak health prevented his accepting a missionary appointment, and he then became minister of a small congregation in Edinburgh, known as "English Baptists", at the Charlotte Chapel. He held this post until shortly before his deat...

« Previous Next »

Image Attributions