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List of the most influential people in Theology,

#1901

Hermann Sasse

1895 - 1976 (81 years)

Hermann Otto Erich Sasse was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian, and author. He was considered one of the foremost confessional Lutheran theologians of the 20th century. Sasses was born on 17 July 1895 in Sonnewalde, Lower Lusatia, Germany, to Hermann Sasse, a pharmacist, and his wife Maria, née Berger. In 1913, he began reading theology and ancient philology at the University of Berlin. He was a German infantryman in World War I, in which he was one of only six men in his battalion to survive the trench warfare in Flanders.

#1902

Henry Sloane Coffin

Henry Sloane Coffin

1877 - 1954 (77 years)

Henry Sloane Coffin was president of the Union Theological Seminary, Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, and one of the most famous ministers in the United States. He was also one of the translators of the popular hymn "O Come, O Come Emmanuel", along with John Mason Neale.

#1903

Geerhardus Vos

1862 - 1949 (87 years)

Geerhardus Johannes Vos was a Dutch-American Calvinist theologian and one of the most distinguished representatives of the Princeton Theology. He is sometimes called the father of Reformed Biblical theology.

#1904

Regin Prenter

1907 - 1990 (83 years)

Regin Prenter was a Danish Lutheran priest and theologian. Prenter studied theology at Copenhagen, where he belonged to the founding circle of Theologisk Oratorium and became friend of Fr Gabriel Hebert, SSM. He had candidate's degree in theology in 1931 and became priest in Hvilsager-Lime and the Aarhus Cathedral. 1935-36 he spent a year at Lincoln Theological College where he came under influence of Michael Ramsay. Later he took part in many Anglican-Lutheran conferences. During W.W.II Prenter was active in the resistance movement against the Nazis and had doctors degree in theology in 1944 about Martin Luther's theology.

#1905

Ned Stonehouse

1902 - 1962 (60 years)

Ned Bernard Stonehouse was a renowned New Testament scholar. He joined J. Gresham Machen in the founding of Westminster Theological Seminary in 1929, where he worked for over thirty years. Stonehouse served as one of the 34 constituting members of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in 1936. He received the A.B. from Calvin College , the Th.B. and Th.M. from Princeton Theological Seminary , and the Ph.D. from the Free University of Amsterdam .

#1906

Giovanni Mercati

1866 - 1957 (91 years)

Giovanni Mercati was an Italian cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as archivist of the Vatican Secret Archives and librarian of the Vatican Library from 1936 until his death, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1936.

#1907

F. W. Grosheide

F. W. Grosheide

1881 - 1972 (91 years)

Frederik Willem Grosheide was a Dutch New Testament scholar. He served as Professor of New Testament at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He served as rector magnificus of that institution three times.

#1908

Albrecht Alt

1883 - 1956 (73 years)

Albrecht Alt , was a leading German Protestant theologian. Eldest son of a Lutheran minister, he completed high school in Ansbach and studied theology at Friedrich-Alexander-University in Erlangen and the University of Leipzig. From 1907 to 1908 he was a candidate for the office of lecturer at Munich Predigerseminar . In 1908 he was a scholarship holder of the German Protestant Institute of Archaeology of the Holy Land in Jerusalem and undertook his first Palestine journey. In the same year he became a supervisor of the theological College in Greifswald. In 1909 he wrote Israel und Aegypten a...

#1909

Edith Stein

1891 - 1942 (51 years)

Edith Stein, OCD was a German Jewish philosopher who converted to Catholicism and became a Discalced Carmelite nun. She is canonized as a martyr and saint of the Catholic Church; she is also one of six patron saints of Europe.

#1910

Charles R. Erdman Sr.

1866 - 1960 (94 years)

Charles Rosenbury Erdman Sr. was an American Presbyterian minister and professor of theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. Early life and education Erdman was born on July 20, 1866, in Fayetteville, New York, to William J. Erdman, a leader in the premillennialist and holiness movements of the late nineteenth century. He earned his B.A. from the College of New Jersey and went on to study at Princeton Theological Seminary from 1887 to 1891. Erdman was ordained on May 8, 1891, in the Presbytery of Philadelphia North, PCUSA.

#1911

Lynn H. Hough

1877 - 1971 (94 years)

Lynn Harold Hough was an American Methodist clergyman, theologian, and academic administrator. He served as the 9th president of Northwestern University from 1919 to 1920. Early life and education Lynn H. Hough was born on September 10, 1877, in Cadiz, Ohio. He earned a bachelor's degree from Scio College in 1898 and Drew University in 1905, followed by a doctorate from Garrett Biblical Institute in 1918.

#1912

James I. McCord

1919 - 1990 (71 years)

James I. McCord was a president of Princeton Theological Seminary. He also won the 1986 Templeton Prize. 150 Years of Princeton Theological Seminary In 1962, as President of Princeton Theological Seminary, McCord hosted the Princeton Theological's 150-year anniversary festivities.

#1913

Jakob Jocz

1906 - 1983 (77 years)

Jakób Jocz was born in Vilnius, Lithuania, and studied in Germany, England, and Scotland. He received his Doctor of Philosophy and Doctor of Letters degrees from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. He contributed to many professional journals and wrote four other books of Old Testament study and systematic theology. Jocz was ordained in the Anglican Church, and served for many years as Professor of Systematic Theology at Wycliffe Seminary, Toronto.

#1914

Martin Dibelius

1883 - 1947 (64 years)

Martin Franz Dibelius was a German Protestant theologian and New Testament professor at the University of Heidelberg. Dibelius was born in Dresden, Germany, on September 14, 1883. Along with Rudolf Bultmann he helped define a period in research about the historical Jesus characterized by skepticism toward the possibility of describing Jesus with historical certainty. In this capacity he is often regarded as an early pioneer of New Testament form criticism, a highly analytical review of literary forms within the New Testament. After studying at multiple universities, he eventually ended up as a teacher of New Testament exegesis and criticism at Heidelberg University.

#1915

Donald Macpherson Baillie

1887 - 1954 (67 years)

Donald Macpherson Baillie was a Scottish theologian, ecumenist, and parish minister. Life Raised in the Calvinist tradition, Baillie studied at University of Edinburgh and then at the University of Marburg, where he was influenced by the theologian Wilhelm Herrmann. After some time as a Church of Scotland parish minister, he wrote Faith in God and its Christian Consummation . This led to his appointment as a professor of divinity at St Mary's College, University of St Andrews, where he spent the remainder of his life.

#1916

Albert C. Knudson

1873 - 1953 (80 years)

Albert Cornelius Knudson was a Christian theologian in the Methodist tradition, associated with Boston University and the school of liberal theology known as Boston personalism. Biography Albert Cornelius Knudson was born on January 23, 1873, in Grand Meadow, Minnesota. He was the son of Asle Knudson and Synnove Knudsen , both of whom were immigrants from Norway. The family subsequently moved to Saint Paul, Minnesota. Asle Knudson regularly traveled by train to Grand Meadow to minister at the Danish-Norwegian Methodist Church until shortly before his death in 1939.

#1917

Johan Herman Bavinck

1895 - 1964 (69 years)

Johan Herman Bavinck was a Dutch pastor, missionary and theologian. Family Bavinck was born in Rotterdam as the second son of Reverend Coenraad Bernardus Bavinck. He attended the Marnix Gymnasium there. Both his father and his grandfather Jan Bavinck were pastors. His uncle was Herman Bavinck, pastor and Professor of Dogmatics at the theological school in Kampen and at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. In 1922 Bavinck married Tine Robers. Their children were Koert, Ben and Ineke.

#1918

Irving Francis Wood

1861 - 1934 (73 years)

Irving Francis Wood was an American biblical scholar. Professor Wood was born at Walton, New York. He graduated from Hamilton College in 1885 with a Bachelor of Arts degree, and taught at Jaffna College, Ceylon, until 1889. Wood then studied for his Bachelor of Divinity degree at Yale and completed it in 1892, the same year he met and married his wife, Katherine Hastings. Katherine bore him two children, Constance and Edna, who both went to get collegiate degrees. He taught for a short time at the University of Chicago before taking a job as a professor of Biblical literature and comparative religion at Smith College in 1893.

#1919

N. P. Williams

1883 - 1943 (60 years)

Norman Powell Williams , known as N. P. Williams, was an Anglican theologian and priest. Educated at Durham School and at Christ Church, Oxford, he enjoyed a succession of appointments at that university: Fellow of Magdalen , Chaplain of Exeter , Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity and Canon of Christ Church . In 1924 he was Bampton lecturer.

#1920

Herbert Brook Workman

1862 - 1951 (89 years)

Herbert Brook Workman was a leading Methodist and secretary of the Wesleyan Methodist Secondary Schools Trust when they took over Elmfield College in 1928. Workman was born in London and educated at Kingswood School and Owens College, Manchester. He entered the Wesleyan ministry in 1885 and served as a circuit minister in England and Scotland until 1903 when he was appointed principal of Westminster College. In 1930 he was elected president of the Wesleyan Conference.

#1921

Joachim Begrich

1900 - 1945 (45 years)

Joachim Begrich was a German biblical scholar and theologian born in Predel, a hamlet now belonging to Elsteraue in the state of Saxony-Anhalt. He was the son of a pastor and the son-in-law of Old Testament scholar Hermann Gunkel .

#1922

L. Harold DeWolf

1905 - 1986 (81 years)

Lotan Harold DeWolf , usually cited as L. Harold Dewolf, was an American Methodist minister and professor of systematic theology at Boston University where he was Martin Luther King Jr.'s "primary teacher and mentor".

#1923

Steven Schwarzschild

Steven Schwarzschild

1924 - 1989 (65 years)

Steven S. Schwarzschild was a rabbi, philosopher, theologian, and editor. Biography Schwarzschild was born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany and grew up in Berlin. He escaped to the United States with his family in 1939.

#1924

Herbert Henry Gowen

1864 - 1960 (96 years)

Herbert Henry Gowen was an Anglican missionary and orientalist who wrote on the history of China and Japan and was long associated with the University of Washington. Early life and education Herbert Gowen was born in Yarmouth, England and earned a B.A. degree from St. Augustine's College in 1886. He was ordained a deacon in the Church of England the same year.

#1925

Oswald Thompson Allis

Oswald Thompson Allis

1880 - 1973 (93 years)

Oswald Thompson Allis was an American Presbyterian theologian and Bible scholar. Biography He was born in 1880 and studied at the University of Pennsylvania and Princeton Theological Seminary. He received a master's degree from Princeton University and a doctorate from the University of Berlin. Later, Allis received an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from Hampden Sydney College in 1927.

#1926

Wilhelm Jannasch

1888 - 1966 (78 years)

Wilhelm Jannasch was a German Protestant theologian and clergyman. He studied theology at the universities of Marburg, Bonn, Berlin and Heidelberg. In 1913 he was ordained as a minister in Weimar, and during the following year received his licentiate at Heidelberg. In 1921 he was named senior pastor at St. Giles Church in Lübeck. In 1934 he was forced into early retirement by the Nazi government, and he subsequently became an active member of the Confessing Church. From 1939 onwards, he served as a pastor of the Confessing congregation in Berlin-Friedenau. From 1946 to 1956 he was a professor...

#1927

Alexander Schmemann

Alexander Schmemann

1921 - 1983 (62 years)

Alexander Dmitrievich Schmemann was an influential Orthodox priest, theologian, and author who spent most of his career in the United States. Born in Estonia to émigrés from the Russian Revolution, he grew up primarily in France, where there was a large émigré community in Paris. After being educated there in both Russian and French schools and universities, from 1946 to 1951 he taught in Paris. That year he immigrated with his family to New York City to teach at Saint Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary. In 1962 he was selected as dean of the Seminary, serving in this position until his death.

#1928

Norman Porteous

1898 - 2003 (105 years)

Norman Walker Porteous was a noted theologian and writer on Old Testament issues, and the last surviving military officer of the First World War. Education Porteous entered the University of Edinburgh as first bursar in 1916, but his studies were interrupted by World War I service in France, where he served as a subaltern in the 13th Battalion, The Royal Scots.

#1929

J. Gresham Machen

J. Gresham Machen

1881 - 1937 (56 years)

John Gresham Machen was an American Presbyterian New Testament scholar and educator in the early 20th century. He was the Professor of New Testament at Princeton Seminary between 1906 and 1929, and led a revolt against modernist theology at Princeton and formed Westminster Theological Seminary as a more orthodox alternative. As the Northern Presbyterian Church continued to reject conservative attempts to enforce faithfulness to the Westminster Confession, Machen led a small group of conservatives out of the church to form the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. When the northern Presbyterian chur...

#1930

Hubert Jedin

1900 - 1980 (80 years)

Hubert Jedin was a Catholic Church historian from Germany, whose publications specialized on the history of ecumenical councils in general and the Council of Trent in particular, on which he published a 2400-page history over the years 1951–1975.

#1931

Douglas Clyde Macintosh

1877 - 1948 (71 years)

Douglas Clyde Macintosh was a Canadian theologian. Biography Macintosh was born in Breadalbane, Ontario, on 18 February 1877 and received his undergraduate degree from McMaster University when it was in Toronto. In 1907 was ordained a Baptist minister and taught at Brandon College in Manitoba. In 1909 Macintosh received his Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of Chicago and joined Yale Divinity School, becoming an assistant professor of systematic theology.

#1932

Johannes Quasten

1900 - 1987 (87 years)

Johannes Quasten was a Roman Catholic theologian and scholar of patristics. Life Johannes Quasten was a Roman Catholic theologian and scholar of patristics. He studied Roman Catholic theology at the Westfälische Wilhelms University in Münster. In 1926 he was ordained priest. In 1927 he earned his graduate Degree with F.J. Dölger in Münster with a thesis on "Music and singing in the cults of the ancient pagan and early Christian times". Further studies followed in the years 1927-1929 in Rome at the Pontificio Istituto di Archeologia Cristiana. At the same time, he served as chaplain at the Campo Santo Teutonico or Teutonic Cemetery.

#1933

Helmut Thielicke

Helmut Thielicke

1908 - 1986 (78 years)

Helmut Thielicke was a German Protestant theologian and rector of the University of Hamburg from 1960 to 1978. Biography Thielicke grew up in Wuppertal, where he went to a humanistic Gymnasium and took his Abitur in 1928. After this he began to study philosophy and theology in Erlangen, but soon had to undergo an operation on his thyroid. Despite the negative outcome of this operation , which were still causing complications 4 years later, he finished his studies and in 1932 he got his doctorate in philosophy with "Das Verhältnis zwischen dem Ethischen und dem Ästethischen" .

#1934

Arnold Ehrhardt

1903 - 1965 (62 years)

Arnold Anton Traugott Ehrhardt was a German jurist and British theologian. Life Arnold was the son of Oscar Ehrhardt, a professor of surgery, and Martha, née Rosenhain, a school teacher from a Jewish family. He went to school in Königsberg and then studied law at Erlangen, Bonn, Berlin and Königsberg. After the First World War he served in the eastern border force and took part in the conflict with the Spartacists. He took his doctoral degree in 1926 in Königsberg and the following year became an assistant to in Göttingen and took his habilitation in civil and Roman law in 1929 in Freiburg. He lectured at the Goethe University of Frankfurt.

#1935

Otto Eissfeldt

1887 - 1973 (86 years)

Otto Eißfeldt, spelled alternatively Otto Eissfeldt, was a German Protestant theologian, known for his work on the Old Testament and comparative near-east religious history. His magisterial 860-page The Old Testament: An Introduction , giving a detailed literary-critical assessment of the history of the formation of each part of the Old Testament on the basis of the documentary hypothesis, has been called the "best of its kind".

#1936

Elihu Grant

1873 - 1942 (69 years)

Elihu Grant was an American scholar and writer on Palestine. Grant was ordained Methodist minister in 1900, and between 1901 and 1904 he was superintendent of the American Friends Schoolss in Ramallah and Jerusalem. Returning to the US he was a professor of biblical literature at Smith College from 1907 to 1917, and thereafter at Haverford College until his retirement in 1938.

#1937

Hans Conzelmann

1915 - 1989 (74 years)

Hans Conzelmann was a Protestant, German theologian and New Testament scholar. Life Conzelmann studied at the universities of Tübingen and Marburg and, after World War II , he became the assistant to Helmut Thielicke at the University of Tübingen. He served at the same time as a pastor and, from 1948, as a religion teacher in a secondary school. In 1951 he submitted his dissertation and, in 1952, his Habilitation at Heidelberg University. He then took a position teaching New Testament at Heidelberg and was called, in 1954, to the University of Zurich, where he was made full professor in 1956.

#1938

W. O. E. Oesterley

1866 - 1950 (84 years)

Rev. William Oscar Emil Oesterley was a Church of England theologian, and professor of Hebrew and Old Testament at King's College, London, from 1926. His many books span a wide range of topics from Bible commentary and Christian doctrine, Judaism and ancient Israel to more general subjects such as Sacred Dance.

#1939

H. A. Hodges

1905 - 1976 (71 years)

Herbert Arthur Hodges was a British philosopher and theologian. He was Professor of Philosophy at Reading University from 1934 to 1969. He was a member of The Moot, the discussion and study group begun by J. H. Oldham. Its purpose was "to continue, in an informal, confidential but serious way, exploration of the relation between church and society and the realisation of Christian ethics in the public sphere." Other members included T. S. Eliot, with whom Hodges corresponded. Eliot suggested to Karl Mannheim that Hodges was closer to Mannheim than others in the Moot, in at least some areas of ...

#1940

Edward Joseph Young

1907 - 1968 (61 years)

Edward Joseph Young was a Reformed theologian and an Old Testament scholar at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from 1936 until his death. Biography Young received an A.B. from Stanford University in 1929, a Th.B. and a Th.M. from Westminster Theological Seminary in 1935, and a Ph.D. from Dropsie College in 1943. He was an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church from 1935–36 and then in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church until his death.

#1941

Elmer George Homrighausen

1900 - 1982 (82 years)

Elmer George Homrighausen was an American theologian. Biography Homrighausen was born in Wheatland, Iowa, and earned an A.B. from Lakeland College , a B.Th. from Princeton Theological Seminary, an M.A. from Butler University, and a Th.M. from the University of Dubuque.

#1942

Norman Perrin

1920 - 1976 (56 years)

Norman Perrin was an English-born, American biblical scholar at the University of Chicago. Perrin specialized in the study of the New Testament, and was internationally known for his work on the teaching of Jesus, as well as on the Redaction Criticism of the New Testament.

#1943

Nels F. S. Ferré

1908 - 1971 (63 years)

Nels Fredrick Solomon Ferré was a Christian theologian born in Luleå, Sweden on June 8, 1908. Life Nels F.S Ferré, born Nils Ferré, was born in Sweden in 1908 to Maria Wickman Ferré and Frans August Ferré and emigrated to The United States alone at age 13. Upon his arrival on Ellis Island, he was detained and later joined his brother in St. Paul Minnesota where he would work for a family farm. In 1931 he graduated with his undergrad from Boston University. In 1932, Ferré married Katharine Louise Pond. With his interest in philosophy and theology, Ferré would pursue a D.B. degree at Andover Newton, graduating with the class of 1934.

#1944

Charles E. Raven

Charles E. Raven

1885 - 1964 (79 years)

Charles Earle Raven was an English theologian and Anglican priest. He was Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge University and Master of Christ's College, Cambridge . His works have been influential in the history of science publishing on the positive effects that theology has had upon modern science.

#1945

J. H. S. Burleigh

1894 - 1985 (91 years)

John Henderson Seaforth Burleigh was a Scottish minister and biblical scholar who served as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1960. He was Honorary President of the Scottish Church History Society. In authorship he is usually referred to as J. H. S. Burleigh.

#1946

George Eldon Ladd

1911 - 1982 (71 years)

George Eldon Ladd was a Baptist minister and professor of New Testament exegesis and theology at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California, known in Christian eschatology for his promotion of inaugurated eschatology and "futuristic post-tribulationism."

#1947

John M. Gillette

1866 - 1949 (83 years)

John Morris Gillette was an American sociologist, specializing in rural sociology, and the 18th president of the American Sociological Association . Biography Before pursuing an academic career, in 1895 Gillette briefly served as a Presbyterian minister in Dodge City, Kansas. He received his MA from Princeton University in 1895 and his Ph.D. from the Chicago Theological Seminary in 1899 and then in sociology from the University of Chicago in 1901.

#1948

Joseph Haroutunian

1904 - 1968 (64 years)

Joseph Haroutunian was an American Presbyterian theologian. He taught at McCormick Theological Seminary, and then at the University of Chicago, where he served as Cyrus H. McCormick Professor of Systematic Theology. He wrote widely on theological matters and on the role of the church in the world.

#1949

Georges Florovsky

Georges Florovsky

1893 - 1979 (86 years)

Georges Vasilievich Florovsky was a Russian Orthodox priest, theologian, and historian. Born in the Russian Empire, he spent his working life in Paris and New York . With Sergei Bulgakov, Vladimir Lossky, Justin Popović and Dumitru Stăniloae he was one of the more influential Eastern Orthodox Christian theologians of the mid-20th century. He was particularly concerned that modern Christian theology might receive inspiration from the lively intellectual debates of the patristic traditions of the undivided Church rather than from later Scholastic or Reformation categories of thought.

#1950

John A. Ryan

1868 - 1945 (77 years)

John Augustine Ryan was an American Catholic priest who was a noted moral theologian and advocate of social justice. Ryan lived during a decisive moment in the development of Catholic social teaching within the United States. The largest influx of immigrants in America's history, the emancipation of American slaves, and the industrial revolution had produced a new social climate in the early twentieth century, and the Catholic Church faced increasing pressure to take a stance on questions of social reform.

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