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.

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List of the most influential people in Theology,

#1401

Stjepan Krasić

#84091

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (86 years)

Stjepan Krasić is Croatian historian, theologian and Roman Catholic friar of the Order of Preachers, member of the Croatian Dominican Province and member of the International Academy of Engineering.

#1402

Nico Horn

#49576

Overall Influence

Johannes Nicolaas Horn is a Namibian Professor of Human rights and Constitutional Law at the University of Namibia since 2002. He holds PhDs in Theology and Law, and was an advocate in the Office of the Prosecutor-General, and Prosecutor in the High Court of Namibia. He worked as UNAM's Director of the Human Rights and Documentation Centre, Dean of the Law Faculty from 2008 until 2010 and also served on the UNAM Governing Council. Nico Horn is the founding editor and a founding trustee of the Namibia Law Journal and chairperson of the Board of Trustees of the SADC Law Journal. He was also a P...

#1403

Tomáš Petráček

#71232

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (52 years)

Tomáš Petráček is a Czech public intellectual, Roman Catholic priest, and scholar. He is considered one of the country's leading church and social historians. He works at the Department of Cultural and Religious Studies at the Faculty of Education at the University of Hradec Králové in East Bohemia, and at the Institute for the History of Christian Art at the Catholic Theological Faculty of Charles University in Prague. He is the author of seven monographs and more than 80 articles, studies and papers not only in Czech but also in English, French, German and Polish. He is an active member of ...

#1404

William L. Reilly

#106579

Overall Influence

1916 - 2009 (93 years)

William L. Reilly, S.J., was an American Jesuit and academic. He was the longest-serving president of Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York. His twelve-year term lasted from 1964 to 1976. Biography

#1405

Horst Dietrich Preuss

Horst Dietrich Preuss

#144059

Overall Influence

1927 - 1993 (66 years)

Horst Dietrich Preuß was a German Protestant theologian, Lutheran pastor, and professor of Old Testament at the University of Göttingen and from 1973 to 1992 at Augustana Divinity School in Neuendettelsau.

#1406

Einar Thomassen

#61952

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (73 years)

Einar Thomassen is a Norwegian religious studies scholar. Career Thomassen was in Bergen, and grew up in Laksevåg. He was taught Coptic, Greek and Latin already during Bergen Cathedral School. He studied in Sweden, France, and Scotland. He took the mag.art. degree at the University of Bergen, and the PhD at the University of St. Andrews.

#1407

Judith Lieu

#87244

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (73 years)

Judith Margaret Lieu is a British theologian and historian of religion. She specialises in the New Testament and early Christianity. Her research includes a focus on early Christian identity in its historical context, and literary analysis of biblical texts. From 2010 to 2018, she was Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge. She retired from her post in 2018.

#1408

Reender Kranenborg

#9780

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (82 years)

Reender Kranenborg is a former editor of the magazine Religious Movement in the Netherlands published by the institute of religious studies of the Free University in Amsterdam. He received his PhD in the theological faculty about the subject of self-realization. He stated in the dissertation that he had attempted to research the subject following the norms of religious studies, not a theological one.

#1409

Christfried Berger

#68833

Overall Influence

1938 - 2003 (65 years)

Christfried Berger was a Protestant theologian in the German Democratic Republic and subsequently, in Germany following reunification. He was a leading ecumenist. Life Berger was born in Posen, at that time a major industrial city in the heart of eastern Germany. After 1945 the family lived in Thuringia, now part of the Soviet occupation zone of Germany, which eventually became East Germany. Berger studied Protestant Theology at Berlin's Humboldt University between 1956 and 1961.

#1410

James D. Strauss

#102594

Overall Influence

1929 - 2014 (85 years)

James Dean Strauss was an American theologian who was professor of theology and philosophy at Lincoln Christian Seminary from 1967-1994. He has been described by many as the Albert Einstein of the Restoration Movement.

#1411

Gina Messina Dysert

#126244

Overall Influence

1975 - Present (49 years)

Gina Messina , previously known as Gina Messina-Dysert, is an American religious studies and women's studies scholar and activist. She gives particular attention to gender issues in religion. Messina is co-founder of Feminism and Religion, which she founded in 2011 with Caroline Kline, Xochitl Alvizo, and Cynthia Garrity Bond. Feminism and Religion is a project that explores the intersection between scholarship and the feminism in religion, community, and activism.

#1412

Lloyd A. Lewis

#117462

Overall Influence

The Reverend Lloyd Alexander "Tony" Lewis, Jr. served on the faculty of Virginia Theological Seminary from 1978 through 1991 and from 2000 to his retirement in 2012. He was the Molly Laird Downs Professor of New Testament.

#1413

Ellen Leonard

#108595

Overall Influence

1933 - 2022 (89 years)

Ellen Margaret Leonard was a Canadian systematic theologian and Roman Catholic religious sister. She published three books on figures important in Roman Catholic modernism, and wrote about feminist and ecological Christologies. She served as the president of the Canadian Theological Society from 1989 to 1990. She entered the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph after high school and worked as a teacher and administrator, prior to earning her PhD and joining the Faculty of Theology at University of St. Michael's College. She received an honorary doctorate from the University of St. Michael's College in 2014.

#1414

Sebastian Kim

#115997

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (69 years)

Sebastian Chang Hwan Kim is a Korean theologian specialized in public theology and Korean Christianity. He is currently Professor of Theology and Public Life and assistant provost for the Korean Studies Center at Fuller Theological Seminary.

#1415

Sahak II Mashalian

#38061

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (62 years)

Archbishop Sahag II Mashalian , also known as Sahak Mashalyan in Eastern Armenian transliteration became the 85th Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople in 2019. The Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople is one of the four Sees of Armenian Apostolic Church and has an autocephalous status, accepting, on the other hand, spiritual supremacy of the Catholicos of Armenia and of all Armenians in Holy Echmiadzin.

#1416

Maryanne Confoy

#115664

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (80 years)

Maryanne P. Confoy RSC is an Australian religious Sister of Charity who has also been a teacher and scholar, working primarily in the areas of ministry and spirituality. Early life and education Maryanne Confoy was born on 15 April 1944. She joined the Sisters of Charity in Australia, an order established by Mary Aikenhead and whose members have been working in education, health and community care since they first arrived in Australia in 1838. Confoy completed a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Melbourne and went on to further postgraduate studies at Boston College and the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

#1417

Christof May

#105075

Overall Influence

1973 - 2022 (49 years)

Christof May was a German Catholic theologian and priest. He worked for the Diocese of Limburg, as Regens of the seminary, as Bischofsvikar responsible for development of the church, and as Domkapitular in the cathedral chapter. He advocated for changes in the Catholic Church.

#1418

John Hughes

#85856

Overall Influence

1979 - 2014 (35 years)

John Mark David Hughes was a British Anglican theologian and Dean of Chapel and Chaplain at Jesus College, Cambridge. He is known for his works on philosophy of religion. Hughes was born in 1978 in Exeter, England. He was ordained as a deacon of the Church of England in 2005 and as a priest in 2006.

#1419

Michael Prior

#54597

Overall Influence

1942 - 2004 (62 years)

Michael Prior, CM was a priest of the Congregation of the Mission, professor of biblical theology at Saint Mary's College, University of Surrey, and a liberation theologian. He was one of the more colourful and controversial figures in the Catholic Church in Great Britain, and an outspoken critic of Israel and of Zionism.

#1420

Alan Walker

#54023

Overall Influence

1911 - 2003 (92 years)

Sir Alan Edgar Walker was an Australian theologian, evangelist, social commentator, broadcaster and activist, and the Superintendent of Wesley Mission . Career Alan Walker was involved in the formation of the World Council of Churches in 1948. He was superintendent of the Methodist Wesley Mission, Pitt Street, Sydney, 1958–1978 and one of the founders of the National Christian Youth Convention in 1955 and Lifeline in 1963. He was first world director of evangelism for the World Methodist Council, 1978 to 1988. He was involved in founding the World Methodist Evangelism Institute in Atlanta, 1982.

#1421

Kathleen Williams

#115268

Overall Influence

Kathleen Williams is an Australian Sister of Mercy and a theologian at the University of Divinity. Education Kathleen Margaret Williams RSM has completed a Bachelor of Arts, a Master of Education , a Master of Theological Studies and a Doctor of Theology.

#1422

Paul-Gerhard Klumbies

#91126

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (67 years)

Paul-Gerhard Klumbies is a German Protestant theologian and New Testament scholar. Education and academic career Klumbies studied from 1976 Protestant theology first in Bethel, then Erlangen, Hamburg and Münster. He completed his theological qualifications in 1982 and 1984 at the Lippische Landeskirche in Detmold. From 1984 to 1988 he was a scientific assistant in the field of New Testament at the Kirchliche Hochschule Bethel, where he was awarded his Ph.D. in 1988. From 1988 to 1993 he was parish vicar and parish pastor in Bad Salzuflen.

#1423

Frank G. Carver

#70821

Overall Influence

1928 - 2017 (89 years)

Frank Gould Carver was an American scholar and professor of Biblical theology and Greek. Carver was born in Crookston, Nebraska to Frank Alonzo and Greeta . He earned his B.A. from Taylor University, his B.D. and Th.M. from Nazarene Theological Seminary, and his Ph.D. on the concept of koinonia from the University of Edinburgh. Carver was one of only three scholars who worked on both the original 1971 translation of the New American Standard Bible as well as the 1995 update. He served as professor emeritus at Point Loma Nazarene University from 1996.

#1424

Edward Fasholé-Luke

#76165

Overall Influence

1934 - Present (90 years)

Edward W. Fasholé-Luke is a Sierra Leone Creole Anglican theologian. Biography Born in 1934 in Freetown, Sierra Leone, Fasholé-Luke received a BA in general studies from Fourah Bay College . He went for further studies in the United Kingdom, pursuing a BA in theology from St John's College, Durham and being ordained an Anglican priest in Durham. He then completed a PhD in theology from King's College, Aberdeen , studying with Andrew Walls in the Centre for the Study of Christianity in the Non-Western World and writing a PhD thesis on "The Doctrine of the Church in the Writings of St. Cyprian...

#1425

Muriel Orevillo-Montenegro

#143737

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (70 years)

Muriel Orevillo-Montenegro is a Filipina theologian known for her writings in Asian feminist theology. She is a Human Rights activist and Peace and Justice advocate. Biography Orevillo-Montenegro's parents and grandparents were amongst the first generation of Protestant converts in the Philippines.

#1426

David Lochhead

#124763

Overall Influence

1936 - 1999 (63 years)

David Morgan Lochhead was born in Montreal, where he attended McGill University. En route to his degrees in science, theology and philosophy of religion, he also studied at Union College, and in Oxford and Chicago. Ordained in 1962, he served two United Church parishes in Quebec and Ontario. At an unusually early stage in his career, David was named to that role of "teacher of the church" which he never relinquished, holding posts at St. Paul's College, Waterloo, Coughlan College, St. John's, Newfoundland, and from 1978 at Vancouver School of Theology. These were the institutions that served as his base; the world of religious thought and life was his parish.

#1427

Kjell Magne Bondevik

#33566

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

Kjell Magne Bondevik is a Norwegian Lutheran minister and politician. As leader of the Christian Democratic Party, he served as the 33rd prime minister of Norway from 1997 to 2000, and from 2001 to 2005, making him, after Erna Solberg, Norway's second longest serving non-Labour Party prime minister since World War II. Currently, Bondevik is president of the Oslo Centre for Peace and Human Rights.

#1428

Choon-Leong Seow

#40247

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (72 years)

Choon-Leong Seow , known as C. L. Seow, is a distinguished biblical scholar, semitist, epigrapher, and historian of Near Eastern religion, currently as Vanderbilt, Buffington, Cupples Chair in Divinity and Distinguished Professor of Hebrew Bible at Vanderbilt University. An expert in wisdom literature, Seow has written widely in the field of biblical studies.

#1429

Philippe Lécrivain

#88000

Overall Influence

1941 - 2020 (79 years)

Philippe Lécrivain was a French Jesuit priest and historian. Biography Lécrivain was born in Le Blanc on 1 August 1941. He was ordained in the Diocese of Rennes in 1968, and joined the Society of Jesus in 1978 in Lyon.

#1430

Henning Graf Reventlow

#83192

Overall Influence

1929 - 2010 (81 years)

Henning Graf Reventlow, full name Henning Lothar Gert Count Reventlow was a German Protestant theologian, Old Testament scholar and university professor. He wrote numerous books on religion. His book The Authority of the Bible and the Rise of the Modern World was translated into English by John Bowden and won the Schlegel-Tieck Prize.

#1431

Sze-kar Wan

#159940

Overall Influence

Sze-kar Wan is a Chinese-American New Testament scholar. Biography Wan was born in China and received his early education in Hong Kong. He moved to the United States when he was 15, received his AB from Brandeis University , M.Div. from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary , and his Th.D. from Harvard University Divinity School . He taught New Testament at Andover Newton Theological School, before becoming Professor of New Testament at Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University. He is ordained as a priest in the Episcopal Church and has been a member of the editorial board for th...

#1432

Mario Javier Saban

#88480

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (58 years)

Mario Javier Sabán , is an Argentinian theologian of Sephardi origin. Early life Mario Javier Sabán was born on 12 February 1966. He has a B.L. by University of Buenos Aires. His father was a Turkish Jew who had immigrated in Argentina.

#1433

Linda Hogan

#85275

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (60 years)

Linda F. Hogan is an Irish ethicist, ecumenist and academic, specialising in Christian ethics, political ethics, human rights, gender, and ecumenism. She is Professor of Ecumenics at Trinity College Dublin, where she was also its vice-provost from 2011 to 2016. She worked as a lecturer at the University of Chester and University of Leeds before joining the staff of Trinity College, Dublin.

#1434

Willem van Asselt

#139706

Overall Influence

1946 - 2014 (68 years)

Willem J. van Asselt was a Dutch professor of historical theology and minister in the Dutch Reformed Church. He studied theology at the University of Utrecht, where he received a doctorate in 1988. He chaired the Classic Reformed Theology Workgroup at Utrecht from 1990 until his death. He became docent at Utrecht in 1993. He was appointed professor doctor in historical theology at ETF Leuven in 2008, where he founded the Institute of Post-Reformation Studies.

#1435

Desmond Connell

Desmond Connell

#65214

Overall Influence

1926 - 2017 (91 years)

Desmond Connell was an Irish cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church. He was an Archbishop of Dublin and Primate of Ireland. Cardinal Connell was one of a number of senior clergy to have been heavily criticised for inaction and for making misleading statements in connection with clerical sex abuse in Dublin. He died on 21 February 2017, aged 90.

#1436

Barbara Thiering

#35854

Overall Influence

1930 - 2015 (85 years)

Barbara Elizabeth Thiering was an Australian historian, theologian, and biblical exegete specialising in the origins of the early Christian Church. In books and journal articles, she challenged Christian orthodoxy, espousing the view that new findings present alternative answers to its supernatural beliefs. Her analysis has been rejected by both New Testament scholars and scholars in Judaism.

#1437

James L. Crenshaw

#57437

Overall Influence

1934 - Present (90 years)

James L. Crenshaw is the Robert L. Flowers Professor of the Old Testament at Duke University Divinity School. He is one of the world’s leading scholars in Old Testament Wisdom literature. He proposes that much of Proverbs was brought together at a time well after Solomon. He has been described as "a highly respected scholar" and an "excellent teacher".

#1438

Anton Jamnik

#115123

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (63 years)

Bishop Anton Jamnik is a Slovenian Roman Catholic prelate who serves as a Titular Bishop of Vina and Auxiliary Bishop of Archdiocese of Ljubljana since 15 November 2005. Education Bishop Jamnik was born into a Roman Catholic family in the capital of Slovenia, but spent his childhood in a peasant family in the village of Videm, Dobrepolje of the historical region of Lower Carniola.

#1439

Tom F. Driver

#108585

Overall Influence

1925 - 2021 (96 years)

Tom Faw Driver was a theologian, preacher, lecturer, author, and peace activist. He is best known for his combined interest in theology, theater, and ritual studies. Tom F. Driver is also known for his numerous publications and lectures on similar topics, which range from academic and popular articles to sermons and books. These culminate in works that condemn war and advocate justice. Driver was also the photographer and director of two documentary films about the violence in Colombia, both of which were written and narrated in collaboration with his wife, historian Anne L. Barstow. Since hi...

#1440

Baby Varghese

#80441

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (71 years)

Baby Varghese, born in India, is a Malankara Orthodox priest and a Church historian and scholar in Syriac Liturgical Theology. Education After graduating from CMS College in Kottayam, Varghese joined Orthodox Theological Seminary in Kottayam. He earned his bachelor's degree in divinity from Serampore University with first class and first rank. In 1981, he earned his doctorate of theology from the Catholic University of Paris. Four years later he earned his Ph.D. in liturgical studies at the University of Paris - Sorbonne in 1985 Varghese has also earned a Syriac diploma from École pratique de...

#1441

Martin Modéus

#148644

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (62 years)

Nils Martin Modéus is a Swedish theologian and bishop who is Archbishop of Uppsala and primate of the Church of Sweden. Prior to this, he was bishop of the Diocese of Linköping from 2011 until 2022, when he was installed as Archbishop.

#1442

Miguel Núñez

#100143

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (66 years)

Dr. Miguel Núñez is a Dominican–American doctor, author, speaker and founder of Wisdom & Integrity Ministries. Núñez is a practicing doctor with specializations in Internal medicine and Infectious Diseases and Head Pastor of the International Baptist Church in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

#1443

Piotr Nawrot

#132707

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (69 years)

Piotr Nawrot is a Polish Roman Catholic priest and musicologist, known for his work in the field of Latin American Baroque music. A native of Poznań, Nawrot joined the Divine Word Missionaries in 1974, achieving ordination in 1981, in the same year earning his degree from the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin. His first missionary assignment was to Paraguay, where he developed an interest in the reductions established by Jesuit priests in the 17th and 18th centuries. He enrolled in the Catholic University of America in 1986, taking a master's degree in music and a doctorate in musicology.

#1444

Jean-Pierre Jossua

#112753

Overall Influence

1930 - 2021 (91 years)

Jean-Pierre Jossua was a French writer and theologian. He was a member of the Dominican Order and spent his career writing, teaching, and researching. He was a professor of dogmatics at Saulchoir. Biography Jossua was born into a Jewish family from Thessaloniki and had to take refuge in Nice during the German occupation. His father was deported to Auschwitz, where he died in 1943. His mother, Marcelle , became a translator.

#1445

Pieter Verhoef

#169651

Overall Influence

1914 - 2013 (99 years)

Pieter Adriaan Verhoef was a South African theologian and professor at Stellenbosch University. He was dean of Stellenbosch's Faculty of Theology from 1975–1979. Verhoef was part of the editorial board that made the 1983 translation of the Bible into Afrikaans by the South African Bible Society.

#1446

David V. Day

#101250

Overall Influence

1936 - Present (88 years)

David Vivian Day is a retired British theologian, school teacher, academic, and Anglican priest. From 1992 to 1999, he was Principal of St John's College, Durham. Early life and education Day was born on 11 August 1936 to Frederick Vivian Day and Enid Blodwen . He was educated at Tottenham Grammar School, a state grammar school in north London. He studied classics at Queen Mary College, University of London, and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1957.

#1447

Karl-Heinz Ohlig

#52887

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (86 years)

Karl-Heinz Ohlig is a German professor of Religious Studies and the History of Christianity at the University of Saarland, Germany. He is the co-editor with Gerd Rudiger Puin of the book Die dunklen Anfänge. Neue Forschungen zur Entstehung und frühen Geschichte des Islam ["The Hidden Origins of Islam: New Research Into Its Early History" ], which argues that Islam was not originally conceived as a distinct religion.

#1448

Rufus Pereira

#87970

Overall Influence

1933 - 2012 (79 years)

Rufus Pereira was a Roman Catholic priest, author of publications on spiritual life, Doctor of theology and exorcist. Biography Born in Bandra, a suburb of Mumbai, India, he was ordained a priest in 1956. He received his doctorate in Biblical Theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. After returning to India, he worked as a high school principal in Mumbai.

#1449

Mark Chapman

#103953

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (64 years)

Mark David Chapman is a British Anglican priest, theologian, historian, and academic. He has been Vice-Principal of Ripon College Cuddesdon since 2002, and Full Professor of the History of Modern Theology at the University of Oxford since 2015.

#1450

Albertus Klijn

#123580

Overall Influence

1923 - 2012 (89 years)

Albertus Frederik Johannes Klijn was a Dutch scholar of the New Testament and early Judaism and Christianity at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen. He was best known for his introductory work on the New Testament, and then later for his publications on early Christian apocryphal literature.

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