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,
#4151
Franz Delitzsch
1813 - 1890 (77 years)
Franz Delitzsch was a German Lutheran theologian and Hebraist. Delitzsch wrote many commentaries on books of the Bible, Jewish antiquities, Biblical psychology, as well as a history of Jewish poetry, and works of Christian apologetics. Today, Delitzsch is best known for his translation of the New Testament into Hebrew , and his series of commentaries on the Old Testament published with Carl Friedrich Keil.
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Padre Pio
1887 - 1968 (81 years)
Pio of Pietrelcina , widely known as , was an Italian Capuchin friar, priest, stigmatist, and mystic. He is venerated as a saint in the Catholic Church, celebrated on 23 September. Pio joined the Capuchins at fifteen and spent most of his religious life in the convent of San Giovanni Rotondo. He was marked by stigmata in 1918, leading to several investigations by the Holy See. Despite temporary sanctions imposed by the Vatican, his reputation kept increasing during his life, attracting many followers to San Giovanni Rotondo. He was the founder of the Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza, a hospital ...
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Isaac Watts
1674 - 1748 (74 years)
Isaac Watts was an English Congregational minister, hymn writer, theologian, and logician. He was a prolific and popular hymn writer and is credited with some 750 hymns. His works include "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross", "Joy to the World", and "Our God, Our Help in Ages Past". He is recognised as the "Godfather of English Hymnody"; many of his hymns remain in use today and have been translated into numerous languages.
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Charles Grandison Finney
1792 - 1875 (83 years)
Charles Grandison Finney was an American Presbyterian minister and leader in the Second Great Awakening in the United States. He has been called the "Father of Old Revivalism." Finney rejected much of traditional Reformed theology.
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Novatian
220 - 258 (38 years)
Novatian was a scholar, priest, and theologian. He is considered by the Catholic Church to have been an antipope between 251 and 258. Some Greek authors give his name as Novatus, who was an African presbyter.
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William Tyndale
1494 - 1536 (42 years)
William Tyndale was an English biblical scholar and linguist who became a leading figure in the Protestant Reformation in the years leading up to his execution. He is well known as a translator of the Bible into English, and was influenced by the works of prominent Protestant Reformers such as Martin Luther.
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Pietro Gasparri
1852 - 1934 (82 years)
Pietro Gasparri was a Roman Catholic cardinal, diplomat and politician in the Roman Curia and the signatory of the Lateran Pacts. He served also as Cardinal Secretary of State under Popes Benedict XV and Pope Pius XI.
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Han Fei
280 BC - 233 BC (47 years)
Han Fei , also known as Han Feizi or Han Fei Zi, was a Chinese philosopher or statesman of the "Legalist" school during the Warring States period, and a prince of the state of Han. Han Fei is often considered to be the greatest representative of "Chinese Legalism" for his eponymous work the Han Feizi, synthesizing the methods of his predecessors. Han Fei's ideas are sometimes compared with those of Niccolò Machiavelli, author of The Prince. Zhuge Liang is said to have attached great importance to the Han Feizi, as well as Shen Buhai.
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Johann Jakob Griesbach
1745 - 1812 (67 years)
Johann Jakob Griesbach was a German biblical textual critic. Griesbach's fame rests upon his work in New Testament criticism, in which he inaugurated a new epoch. His solution to the synoptic problem bears his name, but the Griesbach hypothesis has become, in modern times, known as the Two-Gospel hypothesis.
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Herman Bavinck
1854 - 1921 (67 years)
Herman Bavinck was a Dutch Calvinist theologian and churchman. He was a significant scholar in the Calvinist tradition, alongside Abraham Kuyper, B. B. Warfield, and Geerhardus Vos. Biography Background Bavinck was born on 13 December 1854 in the town of Hoogeveen in the Netherlands to a German father, Jan Bavinck , who was the minister of theologically conservative, ecclesiastically separatist Christian Reformed Church . After his high school education, Bavinck first went to the Theological School in Kampen in 1873, but then moved on to Leiden for further training after one year in Kampen....
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Julian of Norwich
1342 - 1500 (158 years)
Julian of Norwich , also known as Juliana of Norwich, the Lady Julian, Dame Julian or Mother Julian, was an English anchoress of the Middle Ages. Her writings, now known as Revelations of Divine Love, are the earliest surviving English language works by a woman, although it is possible that some anonymous works may have had female authors. They are also the only surviving English language works by an anchoress.
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C. H. Dodd
1884 - 1973 (89 years)
Charles Harold Dodd was a Welsh New Testament scholar and influential Protestant theologian. He is known for promoting "realized eschatology", the belief that Jesus' references to the kingdom of God meant a present reality rather than a future apocalypse. He was influenced by Martin Heidegger and Rudolf Otto.
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Brooke Foss Westcott
1825 - 1901 (76 years)
Brooke Foss Westcott was an English bishop, biblical scholar and theologian, serving as Bishop of Durham from 1890 until his death. He is perhaps most known for co-editing The New Testament in the Original Greek in 1881. He was an enthusiastic supporter of the British Empire.
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Solomon Schechter
1847 - 1915 (68 years)
Solomon Schechter was a Moldavian-born British-American rabbi, academic scholar and educator, most famous for his roles as founder and President of the United Synagogue of America, President of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, and architect of American Conservative Judaism.
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Richard Baxter
1615 - 1691 (76 years)
Richard Baxter was an English Nonconformist church leader and theologian from Rowton, Shropshire, who has been described as "the chief of English Protestant Schoolmen". He made his reputation in the late 1630s by his ministry at Kidderminster in Worcestershire, when he also began a long and prolific career as theological writer.
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Eduard Zeller
1814 - 1908 (94 years)
Eduard Gottlob Zeller was a German philosopher and Protestant theologian of the Tübingen School of theology. He was well known for his writings on Ancient Greek philosophy, especially Pre-Socratic Philosophy, and most of all for his celebrated, multi-volume historical treatise The Philosophy of Greeks in their Historical Development . Zeller was also a central figure in the revival of neo-Kantianism.
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August Tholuck
1799 - 1877 (78 years)
Friedrich August Gotttreu Tholuck , known as August Tholuck, was a German Protestant theologian, pastor, and historian, and church leader. Biography Tholuck was born at Breslau, and educated at the gymnasium and university there. He distinguished himself by his ability to learn languages. A love of Oriental languages and literature led him to exchange the University of Breslau for that of Berlin, in order to study to greater advantage, and there he was received into the house of the Orientalist Heinrich Friedrich von Diez . He was introduced to pietistic circles in Berlin, and came under the...
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Francesco Antonio Zaccaria
1714 - 1795 (81 years)
Francesco Antonio Zaccaria was an Italian theologian, historian, and prolific writer. Biography Francesco Antonio Zaccaria was born in Venice. His father, Tancredi, was a noted jurist. He joined the Austrian province of the Society of Jesus on 18 October 1731. Zaccaria taught grammar, the humanities, and rhetoric in the College of Gorizia, and was ordained priest at Rome in 1740. He spent some time in pastoral work in Ancona, Fermo, and Pistoia, gaining renown as a preacher and controversial lecturer. In 1751 he succeeded Muratori as ducal archivist and librarian of Modena, but was removed in...
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Karl Daub
1765 - 1836 (71 years)
Karl Daub was a German Protestant theologian. Biography He was born at Kassel. He studied philosophy, philology and theology at Marburg in 1786, and eventually became professor ordinarius of theology at the University of Heidelberg, where he remained until his death. He became rector of the university in 1816 and 1824. He was married in 1801 to Sophie Wilhelmine Charlotte Blum.
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Michael Pomazansky
1888 - 1988 (100 years)
Protopresbyter Michael Ivanovich Pomazansky was a Russian theologian. Biography He was born in the village of Koryst, in the governorate of Volhynia. His father was Archpriest Ioann Pomazansky who was the son of Father Ioann Ambrosievich. Fr. Michael's mother, Vera Grigorievna, was the daughter of a protodeacon and later priest in the city of Zhitomir. From 1920 until 1934 Fr. Michael taught Russian philology, literature, philosophical dialectics and Latin at the Russian lycée in Rivne.
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William Greenough Thayer Shedd
1820 - 1894 (74 years)
William Greenough Thayer Shedd , son of the Reverend Marshall Shedd and Eliza Thayer, was an American Presbyterian theologian born in Acton, Massachusetts. In 1835, Shedd enrolled at the University of Vermont and became a protégé of UVM president James Marsh. Under the influence of his mentor, Shedd was deeply affected by the thought of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Transcendentalism. He graduated from UVM in 1839 and taught school for one year, during which time he began to attend the Presbyterian church. Being called to the ministry, Shedd entered Andover Theological Seminary in 1840 and studied under theologian Leonard Woods.
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Kurt E. Koch
1913 - 1987 (74 years)
Kurt E. Koch was a Protestant theologian and writer. He was best known for his publications on the occult. Life After studying Protestant theology, Koch obtained a doctorate in theology from the University of Tübingen. He then became a pastor at the service of the Protestant Church in Baden. His functions were mainly working with young people and evangelism.
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John Owen
1616 - 1683 (67 years)
John Owen was an English Nonconformist church leader, theologian, and academic administrator at the University of Oxford. He was briefly a member of parliament for the University's constituency, sitting in the First Protectorate Parliament of 1654 to 1655.
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Christoph Blumhardt
1842 - 1919 (77 years)
Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt was a German Lutheran theologian and one of the founders of Christian socialism in Germany and Switzerland. He was a well-known preacher. In 1899 he announced his support for socialism and joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany; for this, he lost his position as minister. The next year, he was elected to the state parliament of Württemberg.
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Thomas Wolsey
1473 - 1530 (57 years)
Thomas Wolsey was an English statesman and Catholic bishop. When Henry VIII became King of England in 1509, Wolsey became the king's almoner. Wolsey's affairs prospered and by 1514 he had become the controlling figure in virtually all matters of state. He also held important ecclesiastical appointments. These included the Archbishop of York—the second most important role in the English church—and that of papal legate. His appointment as a cardinal by Pope Leo X in 1515 gave him precedence over all other English clergy.
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Christoph Ernst Luthardt
1823 - 1902 (79 years)
Christoph Ernst Luthardt , was a conservative German Lutheran theologian, Biblical commentator and Christian apologist. He was born in Maroldsweisach, Bavaria. Biography From 1841 to 1845 he studied theology at Erlangen and Berlin, and in 1854 became an associate professor of dogmatic theology and exegesis at the University of Marburg. In 1856 he became professor ordinarius of systematic theology and New Testament exegesis at Leipzig. On five separate occasions he was dean of the Leipzig theology faculty. In 1865 he was made a counsellor to the State Consistory of the Lutheran Church of Saxony, in 1871 canon of Meissen Cathedral, and in 1887 a privy councillor to the church.
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Jonathan Paul
1853 - 1931 (78 years)
Jonathan Anton Alexander Paul was a German Pentecostal minister, writer, theologian, and Bible scholar and translator. Paul graduated from the Studium der Theologie in the University of Greifswald and pastored in Pomerania. He was member of the Gnadauer Verband, an evangelical movement within the Evangelical Church in Germany and supported youth activities, social ministry among workers, and pietistic conversion.
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August Friedrich Christian Vilmar
1800 - 1868 (68 years)
August Friedrich Christian Vilmar, German Neo-Lutheran theologian; born at Solz November 21, 1800; died at Marburg July 30, 1868. Early career In 1818-20 he studied theology at Marburg, only to learn doubt from rationalism, and from doubt to pass to unbelief. In December, 1823, he was appointed rector of the municipal school at Rotenburg, where he remained until 1827, when he went to Hersfeld as fourth teacher and collaborator at the gymnasium, being promoted third teacher in 1829. During these years he renounced rationalism, and for a year or two professed the opinion that the world is the feeling of God.
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Bar Hebraeus
1226 - 1286 (60 years)
Gregory Bar Hebraeus , known by his Syriac ancestral surname as Barebraya or Barebroyo, in Arabic sources by his kunya Abu'l-Faraj, and his Latinized name Abulpharagius in the Latin West, was a Maphrian of the Syriac Orthodox Church from 1264 to 1286. He was a prominent writer, who created various works in the fields of Christian theology, philosophy, history, linguistics, and poetry. For his contributions to the development of Syriac literature, has been praised as one of the most learned and versatile writers among Syriac Orthodox Christians.
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Thomas Helwys
1550 - 1616 (66 years)
Thomas Helwys , an English minister, was one of the joint founders, with John Smyth, of the General Baptist denomination. In the early seventeenth century, Helwys was principal formulator of demand that the church and the state be kept separate in matters of law, so that individuals might have a freedom of religious conscience. Helwys was an advocate of religious liberty at a time when to hold to such views could be dangerous. He died in prison as a consequence of the religious persecution of Protestant Dissenters under King James I.
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Otto Faller
1889 - 1971 (82 years)
Rev.Otto Faller SJ was Provincial Superior of the Jesuit order in Germany, educator, teacher and Dean at Stella Matutina in Feldkirch, Austria and Kolleg St. Blasien in Germany, professor of patristic studies at the Gregorian University. He was lifelong editor of the works of St. Ambrose. At the request of Pope Pius XII, he contributed to the preparation of the dogma of the assumption of Mary and organized new Papal charity and Papal refugee offices during World War II.
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Johannes Oecolampadius
1482 - 1531 (49 years)
Johannes Oecolampadius was a German Protestant reformer in the Calvinist tradition from the Electoral Palatinate. He was the leader of the Protestant faction in the Baden Disputation of 1526, and he was one of the founders of Protestant theology, engaging in disputes with Erasmus, Huldrych Zwingli, Martin Luther and Martin Bucer. Calvin adopted his view on the Eucharist dispute .
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John Williamson Nevin
1803 - 1886 (83 years)
John Williamson Nevin , was an American theologian and educationalist. He was born in the Cumberland Valley, near Shippensburg, Franklin County, Pennsylvania. He was the father of noted sculptor and poet Blanche Nevin.
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John Vidmar
1900 - Present (126 years)
John C. Vidmar, O.P. is an associate professor of history at Providence College, Rhode Island where he also serves as provincial archivist and teaches history. Prior to his work at Providence, he served as associate professor, academic dean, acting president and prior teaching history for 15 years at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington D.C.
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Georgia Harkness
1891 - 1974 (83 years)
Georgia Elma Harkness was an American Methodist theologian and philosopher. Harkness has been described as one of the first significant American female theologians and was important in the movement to legalize the ordination of women in American Methodism.
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Karl Josef von Hefele
1809 - 1893 (84 years)
Karl Josef von Hefele was a Roman Catholic bishop and theologian of Germany. Biography Hefele was born at Unterkochen in Württemberg and was educated at Tübingen, where in 1839 he became professor-ordinary of Church history and patristics in the Roman Catholic faculty of theology, while collaborating along with William Robinson Clark to his major work.
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Paul Althaus
1888 - 1966 (78 years)
Paul Althaus was a German Lutheran theologian. He was born in Obershagen in the Province of Hanover, and he died in Erlangen. He held various pastorates from 1914 to 1925, when he was appointed associate professor of practical and systematic theology at the University of Göttingen, becoming full professor two years later. Althaus was moderately critical of Lutheran Orthodoxy and evangelical-leaning Neo-Lutheranism. He termed it a “mistake” to “defend the authenticity and infallibility of the Bible.”
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Leslie Weatherhead
1893 - 1976 (83 years)
Leslie Dixon Weatherhead was an English Christian theologian in the liberal Protestant tradition. Weatherhead was noted for his preaching ministry at City Temple in London and for his books, including The Will of God, The Christian Agnostic, and Psychology, Religion, and Healing.
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William Hendriksen
1900 - 1982 (82 years)
William Hendriksen was a New Testament scholar and writer of Bible commentaries. He was born in Tiel, Gelderland, but his family moved to Kalamazoo, Michigan in 1911. Hendriksen studied at Calvin College and Calvin Theological Seminary before obtaining an S.T.D. degree from Pikes Peak Bible Seminary, as was typical for on-the-job pastors seeking doctorates in the 1930s and 1940s. It is there that he wrote the thesis More than Conquerors. This book has never gone off the market since it was privately printed and Herman Baker issued it as the first publication of the new Baker Book House in 1940.
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John Witherspoon
1723 - 1794 (71 years)
John Witherspoon was a Scottish-American Presbyterian minister, educator, farmer, slaveholder, and a Founding Father of the United States. Witherspoon embraced the concepts of Scottish common sense realism, and while president of the College of New Jersey became an influential figure in the development of the United States' national character. Politically active, Witherspoon was a delegate from New Jersey to the Second Continental Congress and a signatory to the July 4, 1776, Declaration of Independence. He was the only active clergyman and the only college president to sign the Declaration....
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Matthias Joseph Scheeben
1835 - 1888 (53 years)
Matthias Joseph Scheeben was a German Catholic theological writer and mystic. "The generations that followed Scheeben regarded him as one of the greatest minds of modern Catholic theology." Life Scheeben studied at the Gregorian University at Rome under Carlo Passaglia, Luigi Taparelli and Giovanni Perrone from 1852 to 1859 and lived in Collegium Germanicum. He was ordained to the priesthood on 18 December 1858. He taught dogmatic theology at the diocesan seminary of Cologne from 1860 to 1875. Scheeben was an impassioned advocate of religious freedom during the Kulturkampf.
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Alexander of Hales
1175 - 1245 (70 years)
Alexander of Hales , also called Doctor Irrefragibilis and Theologorum Monarcha, was a Franciscan friar, theologian and philosopher important in the development of scholasticism. Life Alexander was born at Hales, Shropshire , England, between 1180 and 1186. He came from a rather wealthy country family. He studied at the University of Paris and became a master of arts sometime before 1210. He began to read theology in 1212 or 1213, and became a regent master in 1220 or 1221. He introduced the Sentences of Peter Lombard as the basic textbook for the study of theology. During the University stri...
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Karl Friedrich Bahrdt
1741 - 1792 (51 years)
Karl Friedrich Bahrdt , also spelled Carl Friedrich Bahrdt, was an unorthodox German Protestant biblical scholar, theologian, and polemicist. Controversial during his day, he is sometimes considered an "enfant terrible" and one of the most immoral characters in German learning.
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Richard Rothe
1799 - 1867 (68 years)
Richard Rothe was a German Lutheran theologian. Biography Richard Rothe was born at Posen, then part of Prussia. He studied theology in the universities of Heidelberg and Berlin under Karl Daub, Schleiermacher and Neander, the philosophers and historians G. W. F. Hegel, Friedrich Creuzer and F. C. Schlosser exercising a considerable influence in shaping his thought. From 1820 to 1822 he was in the clerical seminary at Wittenberg. In the autumn of 1823 he was appointed chaplain to the Kingdom of Prussia embassy in Rome, of which Baron Bunsen was the head. This post he exchanged in 1828 for a ...
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Theophylact of Ohrid
1055 - 1107 (52 years)
Theophylact was a Byzantine archbishop of Ohrid and commentator on the Bible. Life Theophylact was born in the mid-11th century at Euripus in Euboea, at the time part of the Byzantine Empire . He became a deacon at Constantinople, attained a high reputation as a scholar, and became the tutor of Constantine Doukas , son of the Emperor Michael VII, for whom he wrote The Education of Princes. In about 1078 he moved to the Province of Bulgaria where he became the archbishop of Achrida .
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Alexandre Vinet
1797 - 1847 (50 years)
Alexandre Rodolphe Vinet was a Swiss literary critic and theologian. Literary critic He was born near Lausanne, Switzerland. Educated for the Protestant ministry, he was ordained in 1819, when already teacher of the French language and literature in the gymnasium at Basel; and throughout his life he was as much a critic as a theologian. His literary criticism brought him into contact with Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, for whom he obtained an invitation to lecture at Lausanne, which led to his famous work on Port-Royal.
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Symmachus
200 - Present (1826 years)
Symmachus was a writer who translated the Old Testament into Greek. His translation was included by Origen in his Hexapla and Tetrapla, which compared various versions of the Old Testament side by side with the Septuagint. Some fragments of Symmachus's version that survive, in what remains of the Hexapla, inspire scholars to remark on the purity and idiomatic elegance of Symmachus' Greek. He was admired by Jerome, who used his work in composing the Vulgate.
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Giovanni Benelli
1921 - 1982 (61 years)
Giovanni Benelli was an Italian Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Florence from 1977 until his death. He was made a cardinal in 1977. Biography Early life and ordination Giovanni Benelli was born 12 May 1921 in Poggiole di Vernio, Tuscany, to Luigi and Maria Benelli. Baptised the day after his birth, on 13 May, he was the youngest of his parents' five surviving children, and his uncle Guido was a revered Franciscan friar. Benelli entered the Seminary of Pistoia in 1931, and then attended the Pontifical Gregorian University and the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy in Rome.
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Charles de Foucauld
1858 - 1916 (58 years)
Charles Eugène de Foucauld de Pontbriand, PFJ was a French soldier, explorer, geographer, ethnographer, Catholic priest and hermit who lived among the Tuareg people in the Sahara in Algeria. He was assassinated in 1916. His inspiration and writings led to the founding of the Little Brothers of Jesus, among other religious congregations. He was canonized by Pope Francis in 2022.
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Táhirih
1817 - 1852 (35 years)
Táhirih As a young girl she was educated privately by her father and showed herself a talented writer. Whilst in her teens she married the son of her uncle, with whom she had a difficult marriage. In the early 1840s she became a follower of Shaykh Ahmad and began a secret correspondence with his successor Kazim Rashti. Táhirih travelled to the Shiʻi holy city of Karbala to meet Kazim Rashti, but he died a number of days before her arrival. In 1844 aged about 27, in search of the Qa'im through the Islamic teachings she figured his whereabouts. Independent to any individual she became acquainted with the teachings of the Báb and accepted his religious claims as Qa'im.
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