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.
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).
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List of the most influential people in Theology,
#901
Harold M. Schulweis
#24384
Overall Influence
1925 - 2014 (89 years)
Harold M. Schulweis was an American rabbi and author. He was the longtime spiritual Leader at Valley Beth Shalom in Encino, California. Biography Schulweis was born in the Bronx, New York, in 1925 to secular parents who respected Zionism and Jewish traditions. His father was an editor of The Jewish Daily Forward. His early Jewish education was influenced by his grandfather, Rabbi Avraham Rezak, who introduced him to the Talmud. In 1945, Schulweis graduated Yeshiva University with a degree in philosophy. Later Schulweis enrolled in the Jewish Theological Seminary, where he studied under Mordecai Kaplan and Abraham Joshua Heschel.
Go to Profile#902
Jamie T. Phelps
#70215
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (83 years)
Jamie Theresa Phelps, O.P. is an American Catholic theologian. Phelps, who is African American, is known for her contributions to womanist theology. Biography Phelps was born in Alabama, the youngest of six children of a Catholic household. She became an Adrian Dominican Sister in 1959.
Go to Profile#903
Raija Sollamo
#104296
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (82 years)
Raija Tellervo Sollamo is a Finnish theologian and professor emerita of Biblical Languages in the Faculty of Theology, University of Helsinki. She was the first female professor in the field of theology in Finland. Between 1998 and 2003, Sollamo was vice-rector of the University of Helsinki, thereby becoming the first female vice-rector in Finland. From 2007 to 2010, she was president of The International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament .
Go to Profile#904
José Luis Mollaghan
#69616
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
José Luis Mollaghan is an Argentinian prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. Since 2014 he has been an official of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. He previously held positions in Argentina, including Auxiliary Bishop of Buenos Aires and Archbishop of Rosario.
Go to Profile#905
J. B. Torrance
#95020
Overall Influence
1923 - 2003 (80 years)
James B. Torrance was a Scottish theologian, biblical scholar and academic. He was Professor of Systematic Theology at the University of Aberdeen. Biography Born in China into the Torrance family of Scottish theologians, to Scottish missionaries to China Thomas Torrance and Annie Elizabeth Torrance , James was a younger brother to Thomas F. Torrance and father of Alan Torrance. Torrance was educated in Edinburgh, receiving first class degrees in philosophy and theology. Following this he continued his studies in Marburg and Basel, where he studied with Karl Barth, and then continued researc...
Go to Profile#906
Mary C. Boys
#62084
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Mary C. Boys , a member of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, is an American scholar specializing in religious studies. Currently, Boys is the Skinner and McAlpin Professor of Practical Theology at Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York. At Union, Boys served as the Dean of Academic Affairs for many years. She was formerly Professor of Religious Education at Boston College, where she served for 17 years.
Go to Profile#907
Andrew McGowan
#60542
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
Andrew Brian McGowan is an Australian scholar of early Christianity and an Anglican priest. He is McFaddin Professor of Anglican Studies at Yale Divinity School and dean and president of the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale.
Go to Profile#908
John Navone
#69575
Overall Influence
1930 - 2016 (86 years)
John J. Navone S.J. was a Jesuit priest, theologian, philosopher, educator, author, raconteur, and Professor Emeritus of Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, Italy. Having reached the mandatory age, he retired from the Gregorian, returned to the Society's Oregon Province, and taught at Gonzaga University in Spokane, WA.
Go to Profile#909
Kune Biezeveld
#77047
Overall Influence
1948 - 2008 (60 years)
Kunegonda Elizabeth Biezeveld was a Dutch theologian. She was a member of the Dutch Reformed Church . Biezeveld studied theology at Leiden University. Afterwards she was a minister in Zandvoort, Voorthuizen and in a hospital in Blaricum.
Go to Profile#910
Martinus Petrus Maria Muskens
#85192
Overall Influence
1935 - 2013 (78 years)
Martinus Petrus Maria Muskens was the Roman Catholic bishop of the Diocese of Breda, Netherlands. Ordained to the priesthood in 1962, Muskens was named bishop in 1994 and resigned in 2007. Notes
Go to Profile#911
John J. Davis
#46671
Overall Influence
John James Davis is an American theologian, archaeologist, and Christian educator. He was the President and Professor Emeritus at Grace Theological Seminary in Winona Lake, Indiana. Early life and education Davis was born in 1936 to Cathryn Ann and John James Davis. He was raised in southern New Jersey and attended Audubon High School. He studied at the Philadelphia Bible Institute in 1955, and in 1959 obtained a B.A. from Trinity College of Florida. Davis was ordained in the Grace Brethren Church in 1962. He received a B.D. in 1962, Th.M. in 1964, and Th.D. in 1967 from Grace Theological Seminary.
Go to Profile#912
Annette Merz
#77814
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (59 years)
Annette Brigitte Merz is a German Protestant theologian and biblical scholar, on the faculty of the University of Utrecht. Merz has conducted vigorous research into the historicity of Jesus and is best known for her 1996 book with Gerd Theissen, The Historical Jesus, a widely used textbook translated into six languages. In the book, Merz and Theissen "assert that the Christian sources portray both positive and negative assessments of temple sacrifice and that Jesus, near the end of his life, deliberately created a rite to displace such sacrifices" and argue that "significant sayings of Jesus ...
Go to Profile#913
Victor P. Hamilton
#57072
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (83 years)
Victor P. Hamilton is a Canadian / American Old Testament scholar. He was Professor of Old Testament and Theology at Asbury University from 1971 until 2007. His retains the role of professor emeritus of Old Testament at Asbury University.
Go to Profile#914
Robert Gordis
#33742
Overall Influence
1908 - 1992 (84 years)
Robert Gordis was an American leading conservative rabbi. He founded the first Conservative Jewish day school, served as President of the Rabbinical Assembly and the Synagogue Council of America, and was a professor at Jewish Theological Seminary of America from 1940 to 1992.
Go to Profile#915
Daniela Müller
#61888
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (67 years)
Daniela Müller is a German theologian and church historian. She is a full professor in the History of Christianity and Canon Law at Radboud University, and has published extensively on the subjects of heresy and dissidents. Her work focuses on "the concepts of orthodoxy and heterodoxy and on the history of dissident communities."
Go to Profile#916
Arthur Luysterman
#76707
Overall Influence
1932 - Present (92 years)
Arthur Luysterman is a Belgian Roman Catholic Bishop. He served as the twenty-ninth Bishop of Ghent between 1991 and 2003. Life Arthur Luysterman was born in Meerbeke, a village in the intensively developed countryside between Ghent and Brussels. He was the eldest of his parents' four children.
Go to Profile#917
Jean Honoré
#48872
Overall Influence
1920 - 2013 (93 years)
Jean Marcel Honoré was a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church and a former archbishop of Tours. He was born in Saint-Brice-en-Coglès. He was ordained on 29 June 1943 after studying at the seminary in Rennes, and from 1958 to 1964 was secretary general of the National Commission for Religious Education and director of the National Centre of Religious Teaching. He was made Bishop of Évreux in 1972 and Archbishop of Tours in 1981. Honoré was known as a specialist in the works of Cardinal Newman.
Go to Profile#918
Hossein Modarressi
#53952
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (72 years)
Hossein Modarressi Tabataba'i is a leading Muslim jurist and professor of law. Early life He attended the Islamic seminary at Qom where he received a complete traditional Islamic education in Islamic philosophy, theology and law, ending with a certificate of ijtihad, the highest degree in Islamic religious tradition. He also taught there for many years before pursuing his secular education which ended in 1982 with a D. Phil. from Oxford University. He has been a professor at Princeton University since 1983 where he is Bayard Dodge Professor of Near Eastern Studies. He has simultaneously been ...
Go to Profile#919
Ruth Padilla DeBorst
#105351
Overall Influence
Ruth Padilla DeBorst is a Latin American evangelical theologian affiliated with the Latin American Theological Fellowship and based in Costa Rica. Biography Padilla DeBorst was born in Colombia as the eldest daughter of an American mother, Catharine Feser Padilla, and an Ecuadorian father, the theologian René Padilla. She attended high school and university in Argentina, receiving her B.Ed. at the Instituto Nacional Superior en Lenguas Vivas in 1984, an M.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies at Wheaton College in 1987, and a PhD in theology from Boston University in 2016, under the supervision of Dana L.
Go to Profile#920
Richard Harries, Baron Harries of Pentregarth
#28973
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (88 years)
Richard Douglas Harries, Baron Harries of Pentregarth, FLSW is a retired bishop of the Church of England and former British Army officer. He was the Bishop of Oxford from 1987 to 2006. From 2008 until 2012 he was the Gresham Professor of Divinity.
Go to Profile#921
Vincent Miceli
#86139
Overall Influence
1915 - 1991 (76 years)
Vincent Peter Miceli, S.J. was a Catholic priest, theologian, and philosopher. Miceli was born in New York City, USA, in 1915, the ninth of ten children of Italian immigrants. While attending Cathedral High School and maintaining a 95.5 average he worked six days a week from 3-10pm delivering books. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1936 to pursue his studies and was ordained a priest in 1949. Fr Miceli received his STL from St Louis University in 1950 and his PhD from Fordham University in 1961. His doctoral dissertation was on the French Catholic existentialist, Gabriel Marcel.
Go to Profile#922
Gregory Collins
#79633
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (64 years)
Gregory Collins was the sixth Abbot of the Abbey of the Dormition in Jerusalem. Studies and priestly ordination Gregory Collins studied Byzantine Studies and Scholastic Philosophy at Queen's University Belfast and the British School of Archaeology in Athens. In 1989 Collins joined the Benedictine religious community at Glenstal Abbey. In 1991, he received his doctorate in Byzantine Studies in Belfast and was a teacher in Nigeria. From 1992 to 1996 he taught at Glenstal Abbey School. He professed in 1994 and received priestly ordination in 1995. After studying depth psychology at the C. G. Ju...
Go to Profile#923
Valson Thampu
#29196
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Revd. Valson Thampu is an Indian educator, Christian theologian, who was the Principal of St Stephen's College, University of Delhi, Delhi, from 2008 to February 2016. Prior to this he was a lecturer at the college and its officiating principal since May 2007. He is a translator from Malayalam to English and his translation of The Scent of the Other Side won the Crossword award. His second translated work, Gift in Green was published by HarperCollins in 2011.
Go to Profile#924
Lee A. Piché
#35025
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
Lee Anthony Piché is an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis in Minnesota beginning in 2009, retired from public ministry in 2015, and returned to public ministry in 2023 as vicar for retired priests.
Go to Profile#925
Erwin Fahlbusch
#88157
Overall Influence
1926 - 2007 (81 years)
Erwin Fahlbusch was a research consultant at Konfessionskundliches Institut in Bensheim and was an honorary professor of Systematic theology in the Faculty of Evangelical Theology at the University of Frankfurt for many years.
Go to Profile#926
Don H. Compier
#64636
Overall Influence
Don H. Compier became Dean of the Bishop Kemper School for Ministry in Topeka, KS, in July 2014. BKSM is a joint project of the Episcopal Dioceses of Nebraska, Western Kansas, Kansas, and West Missouri. It uniquely seeks to educate candidates for ordained ministry, both priests and deacons, together with lay ministers. The school is strongly committed to making quality theological education affordable and accessible to all. Compier was ordained a priest in the Episcopal Church in January 2015.
Go to Profile#927
Nythamar de Oliveira
#62452
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (64 years)
Nythamar de Oliveira is a Brazilian philosopher, theologian, and university teacher. Born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, he is full professor at the School of Humanities of the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul, in Porto Alegre.
Go to Profile#928
Willem van 't Spijker
#80320
Overall Influence
1926 - 2021 (95 years)
Willem van 't Spijker was a Dutch minister and theologian. He was specialized in church history and church law. Life Willem van 't Spijker was born and grew up in Zwolle in a simple family characterized by sincere piety. He married the daughter of Professor Hovius, and studied theology in Apeldoorn. Van 't Spijker graduated from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in 1970 with a dissertation titled "The offices of Martin Bucer". After working as a minister at Drogeham and Utrecht, he became a professor at the Theological University of Apeldoorn of the Christian Reformed Churches. In 1997 he took leave as a professor and as succeeded by Herman Selderhuis.
Go to Profile#929
Henri Madelin
#72085
Overall Influence
1936 - 2020 (84 years)
Henri Madelin was a French Jesuit priest and theologian. Biography Madelin was born on 26 April 1936 in a family of nine children. His family moved to Blois in 1939, where Madelin practiced scouting.
Go to Profile#930
Herbert McCabe
#18135
Overall Influence
1926 - 2001 (75 years)
Herbert John Ignatius McCabe was a Dominican priest, theologian and philosopher. Biography Herbert McCabe was born in Middlesbrough in the North Riding of Yorkshire. He studied chemistry at Manchester University, but influenced by Dorothy Emmet switched to philosophy. He contributed a number of pieces to Humanitas, and became friends with Eric John among others.
Go to Profile#931
Richard S. Taylor
#66338
Overall Influence
1912 - 2006 (94 years)
#932
Christopher M. Tuckett
#85168
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (76 years)
Christopher M. Tuckett is a British biblical scholar and Anglican priest. He holds the Title of Distinction of Professor of New Testament Studies at the University of Oxford and is a Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford.
Go to Profile#933
John Wijngaards
#41330
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (89 years)
Johannes Nicolaas Maria Wijngaards is a Catholic scripture scholar and a laicized priest. Since 1977 he has been prominent in his public opposition to the teaching of the Catholic Church on the impossibility of ordaining women to the priesthood. In 1998 he resigned from his priestly ministry in protest against Pope John Paul II’s decrees Ordinatio sacerdotalis and Ad Tuendam Fidem which prohibited further discussion of the women priests’ issue in the Catholic Church.
Go to Profile#934
Philip Clayton
#33188
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (68 years)
Philip Clayton is an American philosopher of religion and philosopher of science. His work focuses on the intersection of science, ethics, and society. He currently holds the Ingraham Chair at Claremont School of Theology and serves as an affiliated faculty member at Claremont Graduate University. Clayton specializes in the philosophy of science, philosophy of biology, and philosophy of religion, as well as in comparative theology.
Go to Profile#935
Bruce McCormack
#84402
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (72 years)
Bruce Lindley McCormack is Charles Hodge Professor Emeritus of Systematic Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. His work focuses on the history of modern theology. McCormack has proposed that Karl Barth's view of Scripture has been misinterpreted, and has proposed a "Neo-Barthian" interpretation.
Go to Profile#936
Rosemary Haughton
#65740
Overall Influence
1927 - Present (97 years)
Rosemary Elena Konradin Haughton is a British-born Catholic lay theologian, who also resided in the United States over a period of 30 years. The daughter of Peter Luling and Sylvia Thompson Luling, she had two sisters, Dr. Virginia Luling , and Elizabeth Dooley . She attended the Farnham Girls' Grammar School, Queen's College, London, and the Slade School of Art. She married Algernon Haughton in 1948; the couple had 12 children including 2 foster children.[2] Algy Haughton died in Edinburgh in 2008.
Go to Profile#937
Francis Nigel Lee
#53571
Overall Influence
1934 - 2011 (77 years)
Francis Nigel Lee was a British-born Christian theologian and minister. Lee was particularly known for the large number of academic degrees he earned from a variety of institutions. He obtained BA, LLB and MA degrees from the University of Cape Town; L.Th, BD, M.Th and Th.D. degrees from the University of Stellenbosch; a Ph.D. from the University of the Free State; and several other doctorates from unaccredited institutions, including D.Min, STD and D.Hum degrees from Whitefield Theological Seminary.
Go to Profile#938
Thomas Rausch
#58884
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (83 years)
Thomas Peter Rausch is the T. Marie Chilton Professor of Catholic Theology and professor of theological studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, having received his doctorate from Duke University.
Go to Profile#939
Kurien Kunnumpuram
#72517
Overall Influence
1931 - 2018 (87 years)
Kurien Kunnumpuram S.J. was a Roman Catholic, Indian Jesuit priest and well-known Christian theologian. A member of the academic staff of the Faculty of Theology at Jnana Deepa, Institute of Philosophy and Theology, Pune , he contributed in the field of ecclesiology, particularly with regard to Vatican II.
Go to Profile#940
Zbigniew Zieliński
#80921
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (59 years)
Zbigniew Zieliński is a Polish prelate of the Catholic Church who became the bishop of the Diocese of Koszalin-Kołobrzeg in February 2023. He was bishop coadjutor of the Diocese of Koszalin-Kołobrzeg from March 2022 to February 2023. He was auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Gdańsk from 2015 to 2022.
Go to Profile#941
James A. Whyte
#52618
Overall Influence
1920 - 2005 (85 years)
James Aitken Whyte was a Scottish theologian, presbyterian minister, and academic. He served as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland from 1988 to 1989. Biography James Whyte was the second son of Andrew Whyte, a provision merchant in Leith, and his wife Barbaro Janet Pitillo Aitken. He was brought up in Edinburgh, attended Melville College and studied philosophy and divinity at the University of Edinburgh.
Go to Profile#942
Rikko Voorberg
#107742
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (44 years)
Rikko Voorberg is a Dutch theologian. Biography Voorberg was born into a minister's family, the second child of Paul Voorberg, minister in the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands . He was educated at Greijdanus College in Zwolle, and then studied theology at the Theological University of the Reformed Churches in Kampen. He moved to Amsterdam and worked for a fledgling Protestant church, and in 2012 started an experimental religious theater group, StroomWest. Since 2013 he is in charge of the so-called "PopUp church", and writes columns for nrc.next and Nederlands Dagblad, and helped found th...
Go to Profile#943
Rosemary Goldie
#68620
Overall Influence
1916 - 2010 (94 years)
Rosemary Goldie AO was an Australian Catholic theologian. Goldie was the first woman to serve in an executive role in the Roman Curia; she was undersecretary of the Pontifical Council for the Laity from 1967 until 1976. She also served as an auditor during the Second Vatican Council.
Go to Profile#944
Jayne Svenungsson
#85123
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (51 years)
Jayne Christine Svenungsson is a Swedish theologian and philosopher who holds the chair in Systematic Theology at Lund University. Her field of research lies within political theology, aesthetics and the philosophy of history.
Go to Profile#945
Luise Schottroff
#95812
Overall Influence
1934 - 2015 (81 years)
Luise Schottroff was a German New Testament and feminist scholar. She was born in Berlin, Germany, and her father was a pastor in the Confessing Church. Schottroff studied theology at the University of Mainz, and then pursued a doctorate at the University of Göttingen, completing her degree in 1960. Her dissertation was entitled, "Die Bereitung zum Sterben: Studien zu den frühen reformatorischen Sterbebüchern." She then became an assistant professor in the faculty of Evangelical theology at the University of Mainz, in 1961. She completed her habilitation at the University of Mainz in 1969. Schottroff taught at the University of Mainz until 1986, reaching full professor by 1973.
Go to Profile#946
Alvin J. Reines
#81854
Overall Influence
1926 - 2004 (78 years)
Alvin J. Reines was an American Reform rabbi, philosopher and theologian. He was professor of Philosophy and Theology at Hebrew Union College. He is known for his pluralistic religious philosophy and theology of polydoxy. Polydoxy emphasizes individual autonomy and religious freedom. For Reines religious believers should be free to choose which beliefs and practices they adopt whilst respecting the right of other religious believer to do the same. Rather than there being one correct conception of God there are many.
Go to Profile#947
Francesco Pio Tamburrino
#96632
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (85 years)
Francesco Pio Tamburrino was the Roman Catholic Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Foggia-Bovino from 2003 to 2014. He was Vice President of the Episcopal Conference of Puglia, Italy. He moved with his family as a child in Cesano Maderno, and at 11 he entered the Benedictine Abbey of Praglia, where he attended the gymnasium. He attended High School in Parma, Italy, and then the two years of philosophy at the Abbey of Pia. He graduated in Theology from the Pontifical Athenaeum of St Anselm in Rome. On 11 October 1955 he issued the first profession as a member of the Order of St. Benedict. On 29 August 1965 he was ordained a priest of the Order of St.
Go to Profile#948
Fredrik Modéus
#119602
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (60 years)
Fredrik Modéus is a Swedish theologian and bishop, currently the 59th Bishop of Växjö. Priest Modéus was ordained in 1991 for the Diocese of Växjö. After he served as vicar in Värnamo between 1991 and 1992. In 1992–1994, he served as a school chaplain in Hässleholm and between 1995 and 1996 as a school chaplain at Oskarshamns folkhøjskole. In 1996, Modéus moved to Lund and took office as a student clergyman, after which he served as supervisory director between 1997 and 1999 in the Helgealand Assembly. In 2000, he became a minister at the church of Helgeand in Lund. Between 2009 and 2014 he s...
Go to Profile#949
Ola Tjørhom
#114927
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (71 years)
Ola Tjørhom is a Norwegian former Lutheran professor of theology who converted to Roman Catholicism on 25 January 2003. Formerly Tjørhom belonged to the Norwegian School of Mission and Theology in Stavanger and was active in ecumenical activities. Tjørhom's conversion has occasioned attention not only in his native country but also in the ecumenical movement all over the world.
Go to Profile#950
David Aers
#62729
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
David Roland Aers is a James B. Duke Professor of English, historical theology and religion at Duke University. He has published widely on literature, sacramental culture and ideology in medieval and Renaissance England.
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