The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
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List of the most influential people in Religious Studies,
#4501
Johann Friedrich König
1619 - 1664 (45 years)
Johann Friedrich König was a German Lutheran theologian, born in Dresden. From 1656 he was a professor at the university of Rostock. He died in Rostock, aged 44.
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Jan Hendrik Scholten
1811 - 1885 (74 years)
Jan Hendrik Scholten , Dutch Protestant theologian, was born at Vleuten near Utrecht. Biography After studying at Utrecht University, he was appointed professor of theology in 1840 at Franeker. From Franeker in 1843 he went to Leiden as professor extraordinarius, and in 1845 was promoted to the rank of ordinarius. Through Scholten, Abraham Kuenen became interested in theology; Scholten was not then the radical theologian he became later. The two scholars in course of time created a movement resembling that of the Tübingen School in Germany. From his theology there "began to rise a different ty...
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Domingo Báñez
1528 - 1604 (76 years)
Domingo Báñez was a Spanish Dominican and Scholastic theologian. The qualifying Mondragonensis sometimes attached to his name seems to refer to the birthplace of his father, Juan Báñez, at Mondragón in Guipúzcoa.
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Alban Stolz
1808 - 1883 (75 years)
Alban Isidor Stolz was a German Roman Catholic theologian and popular author. Life Stolz was born at Bühl, Baden. He first studied at the gymnasium at Rastatt , and then proceeded to the University of Freiburg. After attending lectures in jurisprudence for a brief period, he devoted himself to the study of theology . He fell into scepticism; but after studying philology at the University of Heidelberg from 1830 to 1832 he regained his former Catholic faith.
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Milton Steinberg
1903 - 1950 (47 years)
Milton Steinberg was an American rabbi, philosopher, theologian and author. Life Born in Rochester, New York, he was raised with the combination of his grandparents' traditional Jewish piety and his father's modernist socialism. He graduated as valedictorian of his class at DeWitt Clinton High School and then majored in Classics at City College of New York which he graduated from summa cum laude in 1924. Steinberg received his doctorate in philosophy from Columbia University in 1928 and then entered the Jewish Theological Seminary of America where he was ordained. In seminary, he was strongly...
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Louis Segond
1810 - 1885 (75 years)
Louis Segond was a Swiss theologian who translated the Bible into French from the original texts in Hebrew and Greek. He was born in Plainpalais, near Geneva. After studying theology in Geneva, Strasbourg and Bonn, he was pastor of the Geneva National Church in Chêne-Bougeries, then from 1872, Professor of Old Testament in Geneva.
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Geert Groote
1340 - 1384 (44 years)
Gerard Groote , otherwise Gerrit or Gerhard Groet, in Latin Gerardus Magnus, was a Dutch Catholic deacon, who was a popular preacher and the founder of the Brethren of the Common Life. He was a key figure in the Devotio Moderna movement.
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Edward Beecher
1803 - 1895 (92 years)
Edward Beecher was an American theologian, the son of Lyman Beecher and the brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe and Henry Ward Beecher. Biography Beecher was born August 27, 1803, in East Hampton, New York. He graduated from Yale College in 1822. After this, he studied theology at Andover Theological School.
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Cleland Boyd McAfee
1866 - 1944 (78 years)
Cleland Boyd McAfee was an American theologian, Presbyterian minister and hymn writer, best known for penning the gospel hymn, "Near to the Heart of God," and its tune called "McAfee". He wrote the song after the concurrent deaths of two of his young nieces, caused by diphtheria. He also is believed to be the creator of the acronym TULIP, which represents the Five Points of Calvinism.
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Francis Brown
1849 - 1916 (67 years)
The Rev. Francis Brown American Semitic scholar, was born in Hanover, New Hampshire. He was the son of Samuel Gilman Brown , president of Hamilton College from 1867 to 1881, and the grandson of Francis Brown, whose removal from the presidency of Dartmouth College and later restoration were incidental to the famous Dartmouth College case.
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Naftali Herz Tur-Sinai
1886 - 1973 (87 years)
Naftali Herz Tur-Sinai was a Bible scholar, author, and linguist instrumental in the revival of the Hebrew language as a modern, spoken language. Tur-Sinai was the first president of the Academy of the Hebrew Language and founder of its Historical Dictionary Project.
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Andrews Norton
1786 - 1853 (67 years)
Andrews Norton was an American preacher and theologian. Along with William Ellery Channing, he was the leader of mainstream Unitarianism of the early and middle 19th century, and was known as the "Unitarian Pope". He was the father of the writer Charles Eliot Norton.
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Joachim Lütkemann
1608 - 1655 (47 years)
Joachim Lütkemann was a German Lutheran theologian and writer of devotional literature. Life Joachim Lütkemann was the son of Samuel Lütkemann, an apothecary from Demmin who had become mayor, and his wife Katharina, née Zander. After attending school in Demmin, he went to university in Greifswald in 1624, then in 1626 to the Marienstiftsgymnasium in Stettin. From 1629–1634he then studied philosophy and theology at the University of Strasbourg, where he was especially influenced by the teachings of Johann Conrad Dannhauer and Johann Schmidt, and later by those of Philipp Jakob Spener. After a ...
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Gustav Adolf Deissmann
1866 - 1937 (71 years)
Gustav Adolf Deissmann was a German Protestant theologian, best known for his leading work on the Greek language used in the New Testament, which he showed was the koine, or commonly used tongue of the Hellenistic world of that time.
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John Charles McQuaid
1895 - 1973 (78 years)
John Charles McQuaid, C.S.Sp. , was the Catholic Primate of Ireland and Archbishop of Dublin between December 1940 and January 1972. He was known for the unusual amount of influence he had over successive governments.
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Claus Harms
1778 - 1855 (77 years)
Claus Harms was a German clergyman and theologian. Life Harms was born at Fahrstedt in Schleswig, and in his youth worked in his father's mill. At the University of Kiel he repudiated the prevailing rationalism and under the influence of Schleiermacher became a fervent Evangelical preacher, first at Lunden , and then at Kiel .
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Valentin Ernst Löscher
1673 - 1749 (76 years)
Valentin Ernst Löscher was a German orthodox Lutheran theologian. At the University of Wittenberg, where his father was professor of theology, he gave his attention mainly to philology and history, but out of respect to his father's wish he selected a theological subject for his master's dissertation, in which he opposed the Pietistic position. Subsequent study at Jena aroused his interest in church history. During travels undertaken at this time he formed the acquaintance of a number of influential anti-Pietistic theologians. In 1696 he began to lecture at Wittenberg on the origin of Deism and Pietism.
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Benedict Welte
1805 - 1885 (80 years)
Benedict Welte was a German Catholic exegete. After studying at Tübingen and Bonn, where he made special studies in the exegesis of the Old Testament and in Oriental languages, he was ordained priest when twenty-eight years old. Soon after this he became assistant lecturer at Tübingen, and in 1840 regular professor of Old Testament exegesis.
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Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange
1877 - 1964 (87 years)
Réginald Marie Garrigou-Lagrange was a French Dominican friar, philosopher and theologian. Garrigou-Lagrange was a neo-Thomist theologian, recognized along with Édouard Hugon and Martin Grabmann as distinguished theologians of the 20th century. As professor at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, he taught dogmatic and spiritual theology in Rome from 1909 to 1959. There he wrote The Three Ages of the Interior Life in 1938.
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Noah Porter
1811 - 1892 (81 years)
Noah Thomas Porter III was an American Congregational minister, academic, philosopher, author, lexicographer and an outspoken anti-slavery activist. Porter Mountain, of the Adirondack Mountains, was named for him after he was the first to climb it in 1875. He was President of Yale College .
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Muhammad Ahmad
1844 - 1885 (41 years)
Muhammad Ahmad bin Abdullah bin Fahal was a Sudanese religious and political leader. In 1881, he claimed to be the Mahdi, and led a successful war against Egyptian rule in Sudan which culminated in a remarkable victory over them in the Siege of Khartoum. He created a vast Islamic state extending from the Red Sea to Central Africa, and founded a movement that remained influential in Sudan a century later.
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Seakle Greijdanus
1871 - 1948 (77 years)
Seakle Greijdanus was a Reformed theologian in the Netherlands, who first served in the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands and later in the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands . Greijdanus was born in Arum, Friesland and studied theology at the Free University in Amsterdam, where he specialized in dogmatics.
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Eusebius Amort
1692 - 1775 (83 years)
Eusebius Amort was a German Roman Catholic theologian. Life Amort was born at Bibermuhle, near Tolz, in Upper Bavaria. He studied at Munich, and at an early age joined the Canons Regular at Polling, where, shortly after his ordination in 1717, he taught theology and philosophy. The Parnassus Boicus learned society was based on a plan started in 1720 by three Augustinian fathers: Eusebius Amort, Gelasius Hieber , a famous preacher in the German language and Agnellus Kandler , a genealogist and librarian. The initial plans fell through, but in 1722 they issued the first volume of the Parnassus...
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T. C. Hammond
1877 - 1961 (84 years)
Thomas Chatterton Hammond was an Irish Anglican cleric whose work on reformed theology and Protestant apologetics has been influential among evangelicals, especially in Ireland, Australia and South Africa. He was also Grand Master of the Grand Orange Lodge of New South Wales.
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August Wilhelm Knobel
1807 - 1863 (56 years)
August Wilhelm Karl Knobel was a German Protestant theologian born in Tzschecheln near Sorau, Niederlausitz. From 1826 he studied philosophy, philology and theology at the University of Breslau, earning his doctorate in 1831. Afterwards, he became a lecturer, and later an associate professor at Breslau. In 1838 he became a professor of theology at Breslau, and shortly afterwards relocated to the University of Giessen.
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Johann Wilhelm Friedrich Höfling
1802 - 1853 (51 years)
Johann Wilhelm Friedrich Höfling was a German Lutheran theologian born in Neudrossenfeld, Bavaria. He specialized in the field of liturgical science. He studied philology and theology at Erlangen, and following his theological exam served as a vicar in Würzburg and as a minister in Nuremberg . In 1831 he earned his doctorate in philosophy at Tübingen, and in 1835 received his theological degree. In 1833 he was appointed professor of practical theology at the University of Erlangen. He died in Munich.
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Amalric of Bena
1150 - 1206 (56 years)
Amalric of Bena was a French theologian, philosopher and sect leader, after whom the Amalricians are named. Reformers such as Martin Luther considered him to be a proto-Protestant. Biography Amalric was born in the latter part of the 12th century at Bennes, a village between Ollé and Chauffours in the diocese of Chartres.
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John Goucher
1845 - 1922 (77 years)
John Franklin Goucher was an American Methodist pastor and missionary and the namesake of Goucher College, formerly the Women's College of Baltimore City. He was one of the college's co-founders along with fellow clergyman John B. Van Meter and served as its second president.
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William Hatch
1875 - 1972 (97 years)
William Henry Paine Hatch was an American theologian and New Testament scholar. Early life and education Hatch was born in Camden, New Jersey. He attended Harvard University, graduating in 1898 . Afterward, he graduated the Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the General Theological Seminary in New York City. Hatch earned a Doctor of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary in New York and a Doctor of Theology from the University of Strasbourg.
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John Robinson
1919 - 1983 (64 years)
John Arthur Thomas Robinson was an English New Testament scholar, author and the Anglican Bishop of Woolwich. He was a lecturer at Trinity College, Cambridge, and later Dean of Trinity College until his death in 1983 from cancer. Robinson was considered a major force in New Testament studies and in shaping liberal Christian theology. Along with the Harvard theologian Harvey Cox, he spearheaded the field of secular theology and, like William Barclay, was a believer in universal salvation.
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Stephen Charnock
1628 - 1680 (52 years)
Stephen Charnock , Puritan divine, was an English Puritan Presbyterian clergyman born at the St Katherine Cree parish of London. Life Charnock studied at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, during which he was converted to the Christian faith, beginning his spiritual journey as a Puritan divine. After leaving the college, he possibly held a position as either a private teacher or tutor, then moving on to become a minister of the faith in Southwark for a short time, converting individuals to Christianity. He continued on to New College, Oxford, where he earned a fellowship and gained a position as se...
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Franz Pieper
1852 - 1931 (79 years)
Franz August Otto Pieper was a Confessional Lutheran theologian who also served as the fourth president of what was known at that time as the German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States .
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Richard of Saint Victor
1110 - 1173 (63 years)
Richard of Saint Victor was a Medieval Scottish philosopher and theologian and one of the most influential religious thinkers of his time. A canon regular, he was a prominent mystical theologian, and was prior of the famous Augustinian Abbey of Saint Victor in Paris from 1162 until his death in 1173.
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Petrus Hofstede de Groot
1802 - 1886 (84 years)
Petrus Hofstede de Groot , Dutch theologian, was born at Leer in East Friesland, and was educated at the Gymnasium and University of Groningen. For three years he was pastor of the Reformed Church at Ulrum, and then entered upon his lifelong duties as professor of theology at Groningen. With his colleagues Louis Gerlach Pareau, Johan Frederik van Oordt, and Willem Muurling, he edited from 1837 to 1872 the Waarheid in Liefde. In this review and in his numerous books he vigorously upheld the orthodox faith against the Dutch "modern theology" movement. He became professor emeritus in 1872, and d...
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Lucius Ferraris
1687 - 1763 (76 years)
Lucius Ferraris was an Italian Franciscan canonist of the 18th century. He was born at Solero, near Alessandria in Northern Italy. He was also professor, provincial of his order, and consultor of the Holy Office. It would seem he died before 1763.
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Willem Visser 't Hooft
1900 - 1985 (85 years)
Willem Adolph Visser 't Hooft was a Dutch theologian who became the first secretary general of the World Council of Churches in 1948 and held this position until his retirement in 1966. Biography Visser 't Hooft was born in Haarlem, in the Netherlands and in his early adult years, was involved in the Dutch student Christian movement and soon became involved internationally. In 1925, while on his first trip to the United States with John R. Mott, he became interested in the "social gospel" movement.
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Ernst Friedrich Karl Rosenmüller
1768 - 1835 (67 years)
Ernst Friedrich Karl Rosenmüller was a German Orientalist and Protestant theologian. Biography He was the eldest son of the rationalist theologian Johann Georg Rosenmüller. He became identified with the University of Leipzig, first as a student, in 1792 as a tutor, extraordinary professor of Arabic in 1796, and ordinary professor of Oriental languages from 1813 to the time of his death, 1835. He promoted the study of the Arabic language, brought within the reach of theologians the rapidly increasing knowledge of his day with reference to the conditions of the East, and endeavored to raise the...
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Paul Wilhelm Schmiedel
1851 - 1935 (84 years)
Paul Wilhelm Schmiedel was a German theologian and professor of New Testament exegesis born in Zaukeroda near Dresden. He studied theology in Jena, where he had as instructors Otto Pfleiderer and Richard Adelbert Lipsius . In 1879 he received his habilitation, and from 1893 to 1923 was a full professor at the University of Zurich.
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Edward Pococke
1604 - 1691 (87 years)
Edward Pococke was an English Orientalist and biblical scholar. Early life The son of Edward Pococke , vicar of Chieveley in Berkshire, he was brought up at Chieveley and educated from a young age at Lord Williams's School, Thame, Oxfordshire. He matriculated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford in 1619, and later was admitted to Corpus Christi College, Oxford . He was ordained a priest of the Church of England on 20 December 1629.
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John Henry Cardinal Newman
#4541
Wilhelm Heitmüller
1869 - 1926 (57 years)
Wilhelm Heitmüller was a German Protestant theologian, born in Döteberg, presently a division in the town of Seelze. Following completion of theological studies, he attended the minister's seminary at Loccum. In 1902 he received his habilitation at Göttingen, and in 1908 became a professor of New Testament studies at the University of Marburg. Later on, he was appointed professor at the universities of Bonn and Tübingen . He died, aged 56, in Tübingen.
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James Orr
1844 - 1913 (69 years)
James Orr was a Scottish Presbyterian minister and professor of church history and then theology. He was an influential defender of evangelical doctrine and a contributor to The Fundamentals. Biography Orr was born in Glasgow and spent his childhood in Manchester and Leeds. He was orphaned and became an apprentice bookbinder, but went on to enter Glasgow University in 1865. In 1870, he obtained an M.A. in Philosophy of Mind, and after graduating from the theological college of the United Presbyterian Church, he was ordained a minister in Hawick. In 1885 he received a D.D. from Glasgow Univers...
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Cadoc
497 - 580 (83 years)
Saint Cadoc or Cadog was a 5th–6th-century Abbot of Llancarfan, near Cowbridge in Glamorgan, Wales, a monastery famous from the era of the British church as a centre of learning, where Illtud spent the first period of his religious life under Cadoc's tutelage. Cadoc is credited with the establishment of many churches in Cornwall, Brittany, Dyfed and Scotland. He is known as Cattwg Ddoeth, "the Wise", and a large collection of his maxims and moral sayings were included in Volume III of the Myvyrian Archaiology. He is listed in the 2004 edition of the Roman Martyrology under 21 September. His ...
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Cyrillus Jarre
1878 - 1952 (74 years)
Cyrillus Jarre was a Franciscan Archbishop in Jinan, Shandong Province, China and a translator of texts on canon law and Chinese law between Latin and Chinese. Jarre got into conflict with the new communist rulers of China early on. He opposed the formation of state-sanctioned Christian churches in China and supported the Legion of Mary, an association of Catholic laity that was viewed as reactionary organization by the communists. As a consequence, Jarre was arrested by the Chinese authorities on July 25, 1951, and from October 17, 1951, onwards he was imprisoned in Jinan.
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Friedrich August Berthold Nitzsch
1832 - 1898 (66 years)
Friedrich August Berthold Nitzsch was a German theologian. The son of Karl Immanuel Nitzsch, he became professor ordinarius of theology at Gießen in 1868 and at Kiel in 1872. He was the author of Das System des Boethius and Grundriss der christlichen Dogmengeschichte, t. I, Die patristische Periode , amongst other texts.
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Frederic Henry Hedge
1805 - 1890 (85 years)
Frederic Henry Hedge was a New England Unitarian minister and Transcendentalist. He was a founder of the Transcendental Club, originally called Hedge's Club, and active in the development of Transcendentalism, although he distanced himself from the movement as it advanced.
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Heinrich Gottlieb Tzschirner
1778 - 1828 (50 years)
Heinrich Gottlieb Tzschirner was a German Protestant theologian born in Mittweida, Saxony. He studied theology at the University of Leipzig, receiving his habilitation in 1800 with assistance from Dresden examinator Franz Volkmar Reinhard . For a period of time he worked as a private lecturer at the University of Wittenberg, and following his father's death became deacon in his home town of Mittweida. In 1805 he was appointed professor of theology at Wittenberg, later returning to Leipzig , where in 1811 he became rector of the university.
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Helmuth von Glasenapp
1891 - 1963 (72 years)
Otto Max Helmuth von Glasenapp was a German indologist and religious scholar who taught as a professor at the University of Konigsberg in East Prussia and Tübingen . Works Die Lehre vom Karman in der Philosophie der Jainas nach den Karmagranthas. Phil. Diss. , Harrassowitz, Leipzig 1915.Der Hinduismus. Religion und Gesellschaft im heutigen Indien. Kurt Wolff, München 1922.Madhvas Philosophie des Vishnu-Glaubens. Mit einer Einleitung über Madhva und seine Schule. Schroeder, Bonn 1923.Indien. , Georg Müller, München 1925.Der Jainismus. Eine indische Erlösungsreligion. Alf Häger, Berlin 1925.Brahma und Buddha.
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Friedrich Adolph Lampe
1683 - 1729 (46 years)
Friedrich Adolph Lampe was a German Pietist pastor, theologian and professor of dogmatics. He was a Cocceian, and follower of Johannes d'Outrein. He is known as the first Pietist leader from a Calvinist rather than Lutheran background.
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William Stringfellow
1928 - 1985 (57 years)
Frank William Stringfellow was an American lay theologian, lawyer and social activist. He was active mostly during the 1960s and 1970s. Life and career Early life and education Born in Johnston, Rhode Island, on April 26, 1928, he grew up in Northampton, Massachusetts, and graduated from Northampton High School in 1945. He managed to obtain several scholarships and entered Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, at the age of fifteen. He later earned a scholarship to the London School of Economics and served in the US 2nd Armored Division. Stringfellow then attended Harvard Law School. After hi...
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