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,

#4701

Rudesind Barlow

1585 - 1656 (71 years)

Dom Rudesind Barlow OSB was an English Benedictine monk, a recusant academic, and Rector of the English College in Douai. Life He was born William Barlow in 1585, the third son of Sir Alexander Barlow of Barlow Hall, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, near Manchester and his wife, Mary Brereton. As an adult, William Barlow went to France to be educated with his younger brother Edward at the English College in Douai.

#4702

Diego Ruiz de Montoya

1562 - 1632 (70 years)

Diego Ruiz de Montoya was a Spanish Jesuit theologian. Life He entered the Society of Jesus in 1572 and was professed on 22 July 1592. He taught philosophy in Granada, moral theology for one year in Baeza, and theology for about twenty years in Cordova and Seville. For a time he was rector of the College of Cordova, and represented his province, Andalusia, at the Sixth General Congregation.

#4703

Diego de Estella

Diego de Estella

1524 - 1578 (54 years)

Diego de Estella was a 16th-century Spanish Franciscan mystic and theologian, born 1524 in Estella, Navarra, died 1578 in Salamanca. His secular name was Diego Ballesteros y Cruzas. With connections in the Spanish court, he was appointed preacher of Philip the Second, and enjoyed worldwide recognition for his theological works displayed in an outstanding classical rhetoric, notably his "The contempt of the world and the vanitie thereof" translated to a vast number of languages both by Catholics and Protestants-Ánglicans from the ending of the 16th to the 20th century. In Elizabethan England ...

#4704

Ibn Abbad al-Rundi

1333 - 1390 (57 years)

Ibn Abbad al-Rundi was one of the leading Sufi theologianss of his time who was born in Ronda. Attracted to Morocco by the famous madrasahs, Ibn Abbad emigrated there at an early age. He spent most of his life in Morocco, living in different cities , and was buried in Bab al-Futuh cemetery in Fes.

#4705

Christen Worm

1672 - 1737 (65 years)

Christen Willumsen Worm was a Danish theologian and Bishop of the Diocese of Zealand from 1711 until his death. Worm began his career as a scholar and a priest. Over the course of his tenure as bishop, his authority as primus inter pares was repeatedly challenged.

#4706

Rajmund Zamanja

Rajmund Zamanja

1587 - 1647 (60 years)

Rajmund Zamanja or Raymundo Giamagnik was a Croatian theologian, philosopher and linguist from Dubrovnik. Biography He was born in Dubrovnik in 1587. He joined the Dominicans in 1601 from which he learned philosophy and theology. Four years later, in 1605, he went to the end of the study in Bologna. In 1612 he returned to Dubrovnik as a lecturer. Three times he was a general vicar of the Dominicans. Fourteen years later, in 1626, he established the first public gymnasium on the ground floor of the Dominican monastery . There he was a teacher and he emphasized the importance of learning Croat...

#4707

Eduard Poppius

1576 - 1624 (48 years)

Eduard Poppius was a Dutch pastor and theologian. He was one of the founders of the Remonstrant Brotherhood and a participant to the Synod of Dordrecht. Biography Poppius was a son of the pastor Pieter Eduardsz Poppius. He studied theology at Leiden University. After his studies, he became a minister in Amstelveen in 1599. From 1609 to 1619 he was a minister of the Reformed Church of Gouda. He was appointed in Gouda because of his choice for the Arminian ideas of Jacobus Arminius, who rejected the doctrine of double predestination.

#4708

Hutchens Chew Bishop

1859 - 1937 (78 years)

The Reverend Dr. Hutchens Chew Bishop was an Episcopal priest who spent most of his career in New York City. He was rector of St. Philip's Episcopal Church in Harlem for 47 years. The church is the oldest black Episcopal parish in New York. The church was founded by abolitionists who laid the first stone in 1819.

#4709

Joseph White

1745 - 1814 (69 years)

Joseph White was an English orientalist and theologian, Laudian Professor of Arabic and then Regius Professor of Hebrew at the University of Oxford. Early life and career He was born in Gloucestershire, the son of Thomas White, a journeyman weaver. He received his earliest education in one of the Gloucester charity schools, and started life in his father's employment. Wealthy neighbours enabled him to pursue his studies at Ruscomb and Gloucester, and with support from John Moore he entered Wadham College, Oxford, as a commoner on 6 June 1765. In September of that year he became scholar of his...

#4710

Robert Boyd

1578 - 1627 (49 years)

Robert Boyd of Trochrig was a Scottish theological writer, teacher and poet. He studied at the University of Edinburgh and after attending lectures by Robert Rollock, prosecuted his studies in France, and became a minister in the French Church. All accounts represent him as a most accomplished scholar. A friend said of him, with perhaps some exaggeration, that he was more eloquent in French than in his native tongue; and Livingstone tells us that he spoke Latin with perfect fluency, but that he had heard him say, if he had his choice, he would rather express himself in Greek than in any other language.

#4711

Paul Eber

1511 - 1569 (58 years)

Paul Eber was a German Lutheran theologian, reformer and hymnwriter, known for the hymn for the dying, "Herr Jesu Christ, wahr Mensch und Gott". Life He was born at Kitzingen in Franconia, and was educated at Nuremberg then Wittenberg, where he became the close friend of Philipp Melanchthon. In 1541 he was appointed professor of Latin grammar at Wittenberg, and in 1557 professor of the Old Testament at Wittenberg University. His range of learning was wide, and he published a handbook of Jewish history, a historical calendar intended to supersede the Roman Saints' Calendar, and a revision of t...

#4712

Joannes Bunderius

1482 - 1557 (75 years)

Joannes Bunderius was a Flemish Catholic theologian and critic of Protestantism. He was born and died in Ghent. He entered the Dominican Order in his native city about 1500, and after having made his religious profession was sent to Leuven to pursue his studies in philosophy and theology. He obtained the degree of Lector in Sacred Theology, and in 1517 returned to Ghent, where, until near the close of his life, he taught philosophy and theology. While occupied in teaching he filled the office of Prior of the convent of Ghent three times , and discharged the duties of General Inquisitor of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tournai.

#4713

Alexander Martin

1857 - 1946 (89 years)

Alexander Martin was a Scottish minister, successively of the Free Church of Scotland , the United Free Church of Scotland and the Church of Scotland. He was Principal of New College, Edinburgh 1918-1935 and one of the architects of the union of the United Free Church of Scotland and the Church of Scotland in 1929.

#4714

Pedro Cornejo de Pedrosa

1536 - 1618 (82 years)

Pedro Cornejo de Pedrosa was a Spanish Carmelite, theologian, and professor of the University of Salamanca . Life Cornejo was born in Salamanca, Spain, and entered the Carmelite order at a young age. He received his doctorate from the University of Salamanca, and then taught philosophy and theology at the same institution.

#4715

Robert Arnot

1744 - 1808 (64 years)

Robert Arnot was a Scottish Presbyterian minister and professor of divinity in St Andrews University, who was Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1794. Early life Arnot studied and was licensed by Cupar Presbytery on 5 Sept 1769. He was ordained minister at the parish of Ceres, Fife on 30 August 1770, where he oversaw that parish's report for the Statistical Account of Scotland. He was elected clerk to the presbytery in December 1777. He resigned this post on 16 October 1792 to take up his post as professor of divinity at New College, . This had been achieved as a...

#4716

Henry of Harclay

1270 - 1317 (47 years)

Henry Harclay was an English medieval philosopher and university chancellor. Biography Harclay was born in the Diocese of Carlisle near the English and Scottish borders. Harclay's family descended from "an old but minor knightly family" of modest origins that gave them their surname Harclay from Hartley; the family name had "considerable variation in the spelling… including: Herkeley, Harkeley, Archilay, Harcla, [etc.]" . Harclay had one sister and six brothers; one of which also brings celebrity to the family name. Andrew Harclay, 1st Earl of Carlisle was a controversial figure in his time ...

#4717

Phillip Norreys

1301 - 1401 (100 years)

Phillip Norreys, Irish theologian, fl. 1427-1465. A native of the diocese of Dublin, Ireland, Norreys made a successful career for himself in the church and Oxford University. He was vicar of Dundalk from 1427, and Doctor of Theology at Oxford by 1435. He was later successively canon, prebendary and Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, occupying the latter post by 1457. He also held the post of rector of Trim.

#4718

Franz Oberthür

1745 - 1831 (86 years)

Franz Oberthür was a German Roman Catholic scholar who edited an 18th-century edition of Josephus once owned by Thomas Jefferson. In 1773 he was appointed professor of dogmatics and polemics at the University of Würzburg. He is best known for his efforts involving reform within the church and the education system. In 1806 he founded the Gesellschaft zur Vervollkommung der mechanischen Künste .

#4719

Robert A. Young

1824 - 1902 (78 years)

Robert A. Young was an American minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. A descendant of slaveholding planters, he served as a minister in many churches in Tennessee, Alabama and Missouri in the Antebellum South. He served as the President of Florence Wesleyan University

#4720

Melchior Hittorp

1525 - 1584 (59 years)

Melchior Hittorp was a German Roman Catholic theologian and liturgical writer. His interests included the liturgical forms of early Christianity. Life On the completion of his studies he obtained the degree of Licentiate of Theology, and was appointed Canon at S. Maria ad Gradus. In 1593 he was elected dean of the collegiate church of St. Cunibert.

#4721

Georg Schreiber

1882 - 1963 (81 years)

Georg Schreiber was a German politician and church historian. He spent fifteen years as a student which, even by the standards of Wilhelmine Germany,was exceptional. Following ordination he increasingly combined his student career with chaplaincy work. He nevertheless ended up with an unusually broad university-level education. He held a full "ordinary" professorship at the University of Münster between 1917 and 1935, and again between 1945 and 1951, also serving as University Rector during 1945/46. He served as a Member of Parliament, representing electoral district 19 – later 17 – between...

#4722

Henri-Michel Guedier de Saint-Aubin

1695 - 1741 (46 years)

Henri-Michel Guedier de Saint-Aubin was a French theologian. He was born in Gournay-en-Bray on 17 June 1695. He studied at Paris, and received the doctor's degree from the Sorbonne Oct. 29,1723. He became professor in that institution in 1730, and its librarian in 1736. Some time after he obtained the abbey of St. Vulmer. He was acquainted with Hebrew, Greek, Latin, French, English, and Italian, besides history, theology, and kindred sciences. For fourteen years he decided all cases of conscience presented to the Sorbonne. He died in Paris on 27 September 1742.

#4723

Alexander Carson

1776 - 1844 (68 years)

Alexander Carson was an Irish Baptist minister. He was known as an author, pastor-teacher and theologian. Life Carson studied in Glasgow and was ordained as a minister in the Presbyterian Church in Ireland in Tobermore, County Londonderry in 1798. After several years he left the Presbyterian Church in Ireland and published Reasons for Separating from the General Synod of Ulster as justification of his action, where he stated:

#4724

Juan Bautista

1555 - 1700 (145 years)

Juan Bautista was a Mexican Franciscan theologian and writer. Life He joined the Franciscans in his native city, and taught theology and metaphysics at the convent of St. Francis of Mexico. He was also a definitor of the province, and became Guardian of Tezcuco twice , of Tlatelolco , and of Tacuba in 1605.

#4725

Peter of Bergamo

1400 - 1482 (82 years)

Peter of Bergamo also called Peter of Almadura was an Italian Dominican theologian. Life Born in Bergamo in the early 15th century, he entered the Dominican Order in his native town, and completed his studies at the University of Bologna, where he received his degree. In the Dominican House of Studies he filled the offices of Master of Students and Bachelor of the Studium.

#4726

Caspar Wistar Hodge Sr.

1830 - 1891 (61 years)

Caspar Wistar Hodge Sr. was an American theologian. Like his father Charles Hodge, he taught at Princeton Theological Seminary, serving as Professor of New Testament. Hodge studied at the College of New Jersey and Princeton Seminary. He taught at the seminary from 1861 until his death.

#4727

Tehilla Lichtenstein

1893 - 1973 (80 years)

Tehilla Lichtenstein was a cofounder and leader of Jewish Science, as well as an author. She was born in Jerusalem and immigrated to America when she was eleven years old. Her parents were Hava and Rabbi Chaim Hirschensohn. She earned a B.A. degree in Classics from Hunter College and an M.A. degree in literature from Columbia University.

#4728

Johann Christian Georg Bodenschatz

1717 - 1797 (80 years)

Johann Christian Georg Bodenschatz , was a German Protestant theologian. Biography Bodenschatz was born at Hof, Germany. In his early education at the gymnasium of Gera he became interested in Oriental and Biblical subjects through his teacher, Schleusner; and later , at the University of Jena, he took up Oriental languages as a special study.

#4729

Vitus Miletus

1549 - 1615 (66 years)

Vitus Miletus was a German Roman Catholic theologian. Life He studied at the German College, Rome, from 1567 to 1575; on 28 October 1573, as dean of the students he gave a short address before Pope Gregory XIII, when he visited the newly organized academy. He was ordained in St. John Lateran on Easter Saturday, 1575, and returned to Germany in the summer of that year; on his way home he was made doctor of theology at Bologna .

#4730

Charles Claude Selecman

Charles Claude Selecman

1874 - 1958 (84 years)

Charles Claude Selecman was an American Methodist minister and educator. He served as the third President of Southern Methodist University from 1923 to 1938. In 1938, he was elected as an American bishop in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.

#4731

Robert Crosse

1606 - 1683 (77 years)

Robert Crosse was an English puritan theologian. Life He was son of William Crosse of Dunster, Somerset. He entered Lincoln College, Oxford, in 1621, obtained a fellowship in 1627, graduated in arts, and in 1637 proceeded B.D. Siding with the presbyterians on the outbreak of the First English Civil War, he was nominated in 1643 one of the Westminster Assembly, and took the Solemn League and Covenant.

#4732

Conrad Koellin

1476 - 1536 (60 years)

Conrad Koellin was a Dominican, professor of theology, and commentator on St. Thomas Aquinas. Life Conrad was born in Ulm in 1476. He entered the Dominican Order in 1492, and professed the following year. During his formative years he reports that he studied Capreolus. He entered the University of Heidelberg in 1500, and in 1507 became a master of theology, and commenced lectures on Thomas Aquinas. It was here that he wrote his line-by-line commentary on the Prima Secundae of Thomas's Summa Theologica. On July 1, 1511, he took the position of master of theology at Cologne. In 1512, at the req...

#4733

George D'Oyly

1778 - 1846 (68 years)

George D'Oyly was an English cleric and academic, theologian and biographer. Life The fourth son of Matthias D'Oyly, archdeacon of Lewes and rector of Buxted, Sussex, he was born 31 October 1778; of his brothers the eldest was Thomas D'Oyly, serjeant-at-law; the second, Sir John D'Oyly; the third, Sir Francis D'Oyly, killed at Waterloo; and the youngest, Major-general Henry D'Oyly. He went to schools at Dorking, Putney, and Kensington, and in 1796 he entered Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. In 1800 he graduated BA as second wrangler and second Smith's prizeman, and in 1801 gained the member's prize for the Latin essay.

#4734

Johann Hasler

1548 - 1593 (45 years)

Johann Hasler , also known as Haslerus, was a 16th-century Swiss theologian and physician. He is known for his association with a group of antitrinitarians including Johann Sylvan and Adam Neuser and for developing Galen's concept of heat and cold into the idea of a scale of temperature.

#4735

Peter Williams Jr.

Peter Williams Jr.

1786 - 1840 (54 years)

Peter Williams Jr. was an African-American Episcopal priest, the second ordained in the United States and the first to serve in New York City. He was an abolitionist who also supported free black emigration to Haiti, the black republic that had achieved independence in 1804 in the Caribbean. In the 1820s and 1830s, he strongly opposed the American Colonization Society's efforts to relocate free blacks to the colony of Liberia in West Africa.

#4736

Jan Koopmans

1905 - 1945 (40 years)

Jan Koopmans was a Dutch theologian, best known for his works De Nederlandsche Geloofsbelijdenis and Wat wij wel en wat wij niet geloven .

#4737

Johann Faber of Heilbronn

Johann Faber of Heilbronn

1504 - 1558 (54 years)

Johann Faber of Heilbronn, also known as Johannes Fabri , was a controversial 16th century Catholic preacher. He was born in Heilbronn. At the age of sixteen he entered the Dominican Order and made his ecclesiastical studies in the convent at Wimpfen. Little is known about his early preaching, but in 1534 he was invited to preach in the cathedral of Augsburg, but owing to the Lutheran tendencies of the time, and the strong anti-Catholic feeling which arose from it, the Catholic clergy were forbidden to preach, and his usefulness in Augsburg was of short duration.

#4738

Muhamed Šefket Kurt

1879 - 1963 (84 years)

Muhamed Šefket Kurt was a Bosnian Imam, theologian and the Mufti of the cities of Banja Luka and Tuzla. He is credited with saving the lives of hundreds of Serbs during World War II. Early life Muhamed Šefket Kurt was born in Travnik, Bosnia and Herzegovina, then a part the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1879 to ethnic Bosniak parents.

#4739

Charles Neaves, Lord Neaves

1800 - 1876 (76 years)

Charles Neaves, Lord Neaves FRSE was a Scottish advocate, judge, theologian and writer. He served as Solicitor General , as a judge of the Court of Session, the supreme court of Scotland , and as Rector of the University of St Andrews .

#4740

Benedictus Figulus

1567 - 1619 (52 years)

Benedictus Figulus of Utenhofen was a German alchemist, publisher, and Rosicrucian. He was an editor of Paracelsian texts and an important representative of Paracelsianism in the early 17th century.

#4741

Fernão de Oliveira

Fernão de Oliveira

1507 - 1581 (74 years)

Fernão de Oliveira , sometimes named Fernando de Oliveira or Fernando Oliveira, was a Portuguese grammarian, Dominican friar, historian, cartographer, naval pilot and theorist on naval warfare and shipbuilding. An adventurous humanist and renaissance man, he studied and published the first grammar of the Portuguese language, the Grammatica da lingoagem portuguesa, in 1536. He was an early critic of slavery and the slave trade.

#4742

Al-Muhasibi

781 - 857 (76 years)

Al-Muḥāsibī was a Muslim Arab, theologian, philosopher and ascetic. He is considered to be the founder of the Baghdad School of Islamic philosophy which combined Kalam and Sufism, and a teacher of the Sufi masters Junayd al-Baghdadi and Sirri Saqti.

#4743

Rodrigo Sánchez de Arévalo

1404 - 1470 (66 years)

Rodrigo Sánchez de Arévalo was a Spanish churchman, historian and political theorist. A learned Spanish bishop, after studying law at Salamanca for ten years and there graduating as Doctor, he became secretary to John II of Castile, and Henry IV of Castile. They employed him as envoy on various missions, notably to the Holy See apropos of the Council of Basle, whose conciliarist theories he opposed. While on a mission to the Holy Roman Empire, he was addressed in a letter by Nicholas of Cusa setting forth the latter's theory of explicatio Petri, the unfolding of the Church from Peter.

#4744

Henry James

1864 - 1949 (85 years)

Henry Lewis James was Dean of Bangor from 1934 to 1940 and an author of theological works in Welsh. Life James was born on 18 March 1864 and educated at Ystrad Meurig School, Christ College, Brecon and Jesus College, Oxford where he obtained a second-class degree in Literae Humaniores. He was ordained in 1887 and served as a curate in Llandudno, later becoming warden of Bangor Church Hostel and, in 1901, rector of Llangefni. He was rector of Tredington, Worcestershire before becoming rector of Aberffraw and, between 1926 and 1930, rector of Dolgellau. Having been made an honorary canon of...

#4745

Adalberon

947 - 1030 (83 years)

Adalberon, or Ascelin , was a French bishop and poet. He was a son of Reginar of Bastogne, and a nephew of Adalberon, Archbishop of Reims. He studied at Reims and was in the chapter of Metz Cathedral. He became bishop of Laon in 977.

#4746

Hassan al-Jabarti

1698 - 1774 (76 years)

Hassan al-Jabarti was a Somali mathematician, theologian, astronomer and philosopher who lived in Cairo, Egypt during the 18th century. Biography Al-Jabarti was the father of the historian Abd al-Rahman al-Jabarti, and originated from the Somali city of Zeila. Hassan is considered one of the great scholars of the 18th century. He frequently conducted experiments in his own house, which was visited and observed by Western students.

#4747

Manuel Kalekas

1360 - 1410 (50 years)

Manuel Kalekas was a monk and theologian of the Byzantine Empire. Kalekas was a disciple of Demetrios Kydones. He lived in Italy, Crete and Lesbos where he translated the works of Boethius and Anselm of Canterbury into Greek, and several Latin liturgical Texts such as the Missa Ambrosiana in Nativitate Domini. Kalekas translated the Comma Johanneum into Greek from the Vulgate.

#4748

Lars Tammelin

1669 - 1733 (64 years)

Lars Tammelin also known as Laurentius Gabrielis Tammelinus was a Finnish mathematician and prelate who was the Bishop of Turku from 1728 to 1733. Biography Tammelin was born on 2 May 1669 in Turku in the Swedish Empire, the son of Gabriel Larsson Tammelinus and Anna Eriksdotter Pihl. He began his studies in Turku and was enrolled at the academy in Turku in 1683. In 1698 he became a professor of mathematics at the Royal Academy of Turku. In August of the following year, he undertook a study trip through Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands where he enrolled at Leiden University on 27 November 1698.

#4749

Lambert Daneau

1535 - 1595 (60 years)

Lambert Daneau was a French jurist and Calvinist theologian. Life He was born at Beaugency-sur-Loire, and educated at Orléans. He studied Greek under Adrianus Turnebus, and then law in Orléans from 1553. He moved to Bourges in 1559; he was particularly influenced by François Hotman, and by Anne du Bourg, who was executed in that year for heresy.

#4750

William H. Bennett

1910 - 1980 (70 years)

William Hunter Bennett was a general authority of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1970 until his death. Bennett was born in Taber, Alberta, Canada. He attended the School of Agriculture in Raymond, Alberta, and earned bachelor's and master's degrees in agriculture from Utah State University in the US, followed by a Ph.D. in agriculture from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He joined the faculty of USU as a professor of agronomy.

« Previous Next »

Image Attributions