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.
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List of the most influential people in Theology,
#3051
F. D. Maurice
1805 - 1872 (67 years)
John Frederick Denison Maurice was an English Anglican theologian, a prolific author, and one of the founders of Christian socialism. Since the Second World War, interest in Maurice has expanded. Early life and education John Frederick Denison Maurice was born in Normanston, Lowestoft, Suffolk, on 29 August 1805, the only son of Michael Maurice and his wife, Priscilla. Michael Maurice was the evening preacher in a Unitarian chapel. Deaths in the family brought about changes in the family's "religious convictions" and "vehement disagreement" between family members. Maurice later wrote about th...
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Eelis Gulin
1893 - 1975 (82 years)
Eelis Gideon Gulin also known as Pinomaa or Gulin-Pinomaa was Professor of New Testament at the University of Helsinki from 1933 to 1945 and Bishop of Tampere from 1945 to 1966. Biography Gulin was born on 29 December 1893 in Mikkeli, Grand Duchy of Finland in the Russian Empire, the son of Arthur Lorenz Pinomaa Gulin and Bertha Kristina Christina Sarlin. In 1915 he graduated with a bachelor's degree and commenced studies in Eastern languages, Greek, Latin and theoretical philosophy, after which he intended to begin researching the Old Testament. In 1918 he graduated in theology and earned a bachelor's degree one year later.
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Reinhold Seeberg
1859 - 1935 (76 years)
Reinhold Seeberg was a German Lutheran theologian. He was a professor of theology at Erlangen, where he had studied, and then in 1893 a professor of dogmatic theology at Friedrich Wilhelm University .
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Henry Orton Wiley
1877 - 1961 (84 years)
Henry Orton Wiley was a Christian theologian primarily associated with the followers of John Wesley who are part of the Holiness movement. A member of the Church of the Nazarene, his "magnum opus" was the three volume systematic theology Christian Theology.
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Friedrich Bleek
1793 - 1859 (66 years)
Friedrich Bleek , was a German Biblical scholar. Life At 16 Bleek's father sent him to the gymnasium at Lübeck, where he became so interested in ancient languages that he abandoned his idea of a legal career and resolved to devote himself to the study of theology. After spending some time at the university of Kiel, he went to Berlin, where, from 1814 to 1817, he studied under De Wette, Neander and Schleiermacher. So highly were his merits appreciated by his professors — Schleiermacher was accustomed to say that he possessed a special charisma for the science of Introduction — that in 1818 afte...
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Anton Friedrich Büsching
1724 - 1793 (69 years)
Anton Friedrich Büsching was a German geographer, historian, educator and theologian. His Erdbeschreibung was the first geographical work of any scientific merit. He also did significant work on behalf of education.
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Friedrich Heinrich Ranke
1798 - 1876 (78 years)
Friedrich Heinrich Ranke was a German Protestant theologian. He was the brother of historian Leopold von Ranke and the father of pediatrician Heinrich von Ranke and anthropologist Johannes Ranke .
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Henry Phillpotts
1778 - 1869 (91 years)
Henry Phillpotts , often called "Henry of Exeter", was the Anglican Bishop of Exeter from 1830 to 1869. One of England's longest serving bishops since the 14th century, Phillpotts was a striking figure of the 19th-century Church.
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Sydney Smith
1771 - 1845 (74 years)
Sydney Smith was an English wit, writer, and Anglican cleric. Besides his energetic parochial work, he was known for his writing and philosophy, founding the Edinburgh Review, lecturing at the Royal Institution and remembered for his rhyming recipe for salad dressing.
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Donald Maclean
1869 - 1943 (74 years)
Donald Maclean was principal of the Free Church College in Edinburgh. He was appointed Professor of Church History and Church Principles in 1920, and principal in 1942, but died the following year. He also co-founded The Evangelical Quarterly.
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Arethas of Caesarea
860 - 935 (75 years)
Arethas of Caesarea was Archbishop of Caesarea Mazaca in Cappadocia early in the 10th century, and is considered one of the most scholarly theologians of the Greek Orthodox Church. The codices produced by him, containing his commentaries are credited with preserving many ancient texts, including those of Plato and Marcus Aurelius' "Meditations".
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Johann Nikolaus von Hontheim
1701 - 1790 (89 years)
Johann Nikolaus von Hontheim was a German historian and theologian. He is remembered as Febronius, the pseudonym under which he wrote his 1763 treatise On the State of the Church and the Legitimate Power of the Roman Pontiff and which gave rise to febronianism.
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Joseph Mede
1586 - 1638 (52 years)
Joseph Mede was an English scholar with a wide range of interests. He was educated at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he became a Fellow in 1613. He is now remembered as a biblical scholar. He was also a naturalist and Egyptologist. He was a Hebraist, and became Lecturer of Greek.
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Hugh Farmer
1714 - 1787 (73 years)
Hugh Farmer was an English Dissenter and theologian. He was educated at the Dissenting Academy in Northampton under Philip Doddridge, and became pastor of a congregation at Walthamstow, Essex. In 1701 he became preacher and one of the Tuesday lecturers at Salters' Hall, London. He was a believer in miracles, but wrote against the existence of supernatural evil. He viewed the devil as allegorical.
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Johannes d'Outrein
1662 - 1722 (60 years)
Johannes d'Outrein was a Dutch preacher, writer and author of evangelical theological works. He studied in Franeker, where he earned his doctorate in 1682. He was a preacher in Oost-Zanen in 1685, Franeker in 1687, Arnhem in 1691, Dordrecht in 1703 and Amsterdam in 1708, where he died in 1722. He was a prominent exponent of the Cocceian movement, and Friedrich Adolph Lampe was one of his disciples. Outrein believed that God was "the alliance God of the Netherlands, of his chosen people, who are gathered there and live there".
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Jean Lasserre
1908 - 1983 (75 years)
Jean Lasserre was a pastor of the Reformed Church of France, a peace theologian, the travel secretary of the French branch of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation and the editor of the Cahiers de la Réconciliation, a French-language magazine. His book, The War and the Gospel made him internationally known.
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William Weston Patton
1821 - 1889 (68 years)
William Weston Patton , was an abolitionist, academic administrator, and scholar. He served as the fifth president of Howard University, and one of the contributors to the words of "John Brown's Body". He was the son of Rev. William Patton and the grandson of Anglo-Irish Congregationalist immigrant and Revolutionary War soldier Major Robert Patton.
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Gerald Molloy
1834 - 1906 (72 years)
Gerald Molloy was an Irish Roman Catholic priest, theologian and scientist. Life He was educated at Castleknock College, and subsequently went to Maynooth College. Here he applied himself to theology and the physical sciences.
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T. C. Chao
1888 - 1979 (91 years)
Tzu-ch'en Chao , also known as T. C. Chao, was one of the leading Protestant theological thinkers in China in the early twentieth century. Life Chao was born on February 14, 1888, in Xinshi, Deqing County, Zhejiang, China. In 1903, at the age of fifteen, he chose to pursue a Western-style education, and enrolled in a secondary school affiliated with Soochow University. He was admitted to the university a few years later.
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John McLeod Campbell
1800 - 1872 (72 years)
John McLeod Campbell was a Scottish minister and Reformed theologian. In the opinion of one German church historian, contemporaneous with Campbell, his theology was a highpoint of British theology during the nineteenth century. James B. Torrance ranked him highly on the doctrine of the atonement, placing Campbell alongside Athanasius of Alexandria and Anselm of Canterbury. Campbell took his cue from his close reading of the early Church Fathers, the historic Reformed confessions and catechisms, John Calvin, Martin Luther's commentary on Galatians, and Jonathan Edwards' works.
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Gaston Frommel
1862 - 1906 (44 years)
Gaston Frommel was a French-Swiss protestant pastor and professor of theology at the University of Geneva from 1894 until his death. Life A Frenchman by birth, his family fled Alsace under German occupation in 1870 and he spent the rest of his life in Switzerland. He may best be described as continuing the spirit of Alexandre Rodolphe Vinet amid the mental conditions marking the end of the 19th century.
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William Barclay
1907 - 1978 (71 years)
William Barclay CBE was a Scottish author, radio and television presenter, Church of Scotland minister, and Professor of Divinity and Biblical Criticism at the University of Glasgow. He wrote a popular set of Bible commentaries on the New Testament that sold 1.5 million copies.
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Johann Nepomuk Ehrlich
1810 - 1864 (54 years)
Johann Nepomuk Ehrlich was an Austrian theologian and philosopher born in Vienna. Biography Ehrlich was born in Vienna. He initially studied philosophy in Krems , and from 1829 to 1834 studied philosophy and theology at the University of Vienna. In 1834 he received his ordination, and from 1836 taught classes in philosophy, history and literature at the gymnasium in Krems.
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Thomas Grantham
1634 - 1692 (58 years)
Thomas Grantham was an English General Baptist minister, and theologian. He had access to Charles II of England, and made petitions on behalf of Baptist beliefs. Early life Grantham was born at Halton Holegate, near Spilsby, Lincolnshire; by trade he was a farmer. In 1644 a nonconformist congregation had been formed in the South Marsh district, between Spilsby and Boston, Lincolnshire, and one of its tenets was the rejection of sponsors in baptism. Four persons seceded from this congregation in 1651, having become Baptists. Grantham joined them, was baptised at Boston in 1653, and in 1656 was chosen their pastor.
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Charles-Louis Richard
1711 - 1794 (83 years)
Charles-Louis Richard was a Catholic theologian and publicist. Life Richard was born at Blainville-sur-l'Eau, in Lorraine. His family though of noble descent, was poor, and he received his education in the schools of his native town. At the age of sixteen he entered the Dominican Order and, after his religious profession, was sent to study theology in Paris, where he received a Doctorate at the Sorbonne. He next applied himself to preaching and the defense of religion against d'Alembert, Voltaire, and their confederates. The outbreak of the French Revolution forced him to seek refuge in Mons, in Belgium.
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Anthony Maraschi
1820 - 1897 (77 years)
The Reverend Anthony Maraschi, S.J. was an Italian-born priest of the Society of Jesus. He was a founder of the University of San Francisco and Saint Ignatius College Preparatory as well as the first pastor of Saint Ignatius Church in San Francisco, California.
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Heinrich Gottlieb Tzschirner
1778 - 1828 (50 years)
Heinrich Gottlieb Tzschirner was a German Protestant theologian born in Mittweida, Saxony. He studied theology at the University of Leipzig, receiving his habilitation in 1800 with assistance from Dresden examinator Franz Volkmar Reinhard . For a period of time he worked as a private lecturer at the University of Wittenberg, and following his father's death became deacon in his home town of Mittweida. In 1805 he was appointed professor of theology at Wittenberg, later returning to Leipzig , where in 1811 he became rector of the university.
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Marcin Czechowic
1532 - 1613 (81 years)
Martin Czechowic was a Polish Socinian minister, Protestant reformer, theologian and writer. Life Born in Zbąszyń on the German border, Czechowic received a humanistic education in Poznań and at the University of Leipzig .
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Johan Frederik van Oordt
1794 - 1852 (58 years)
Johan Frederik van Oordt; name sometimes spelled as Joan Frederik van Oordt was a Dutch theologian born in Rotterdam. In 1821 he earned his doctorate at University of Utrecht, where one of his instructors was Philip Willem van Heusde . While still a student he served as pastor in Lower Langbroek. Following graduation he served as a minister in Alkmaar, and in 1823 returned to Utrecht, where he worked as a minister and teacher.
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Franz Xaver Reithmayr
1809 - 1872 (63 years)
Franz Xaver Reithmayr was a German Catholic theologian who specialized in New Testament exegesis. He was born in Illkofen, located near Regensburg. He studied theology in Regensburg and at the University of Munich. In 1832 he received his ordination, and for a period of time taught classes at the Latin School in Regensburg. Afterwards, he returned to Munich and continued his studies under theologian Johann Adam Möhler , who was a profound influence to Reithmayr's career. After Möhler's death in 1838, he edited and published his mentor's "Patrologie oder christliche Literärgeschichte" .
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Adolf Bernhard Christoph Hilgenfeld
1823 - 1907 (84 years)
Adolf Bernhard Christoph Hilgenfeld was a German Protestant theologian. Biography He was born at Stappenbeck near Salzwedel in the Province of Saxony. He studied at the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin and the University of Halle, and in 1890 became professor ordinarius of theology at the University of Jena. He belonged to the Tübingen school. Fond of emphasizing his independence of Ferdinand Christian Baur, he still, in all important points, followed in the footsteps of his master; his method, which he is wont to contrast as Literarkritik with Baur's Tendenzkritik, "is nevertheless es...
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Cornelius Loos
1546 - 1595 (49 years)
Cornelius Loos , also known as Cornelius Losaeus Callidius, was a Roman Catholic priest, theologian, and professor of theology. He was the first Catholic official to write publicly against the witch trials raging throughout Europe from the 1580s to the 1590s. For this, he was imprisoned and forced to recant; his work was confiscated and suppressed by church officials. His manuscript was lost for almost 300 years. It was discovered in the Jesuit Library of Trier in 1886 by an American historian, George Lincoln Burr.
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Michael Lilienthal
1686 - 1750 (64 years)
Michael Lilienthal was a German theologian. He was born in Liebstadt, Prussia, on 8 September 1686. He studied theology at Königsberg and Jena, and became professor in the University of Rostock. He afterwards visited Holland, where he studied philology and archaeology, and after his return was for some years professor at Königsberg. In 1714 he became assistant librarian of that university, and in 1719 was appointed deacon of one of the churches at Heidelberg. He was made member of the Academy of Berlin in 1711, and of that of Strasburg in 1733. He died in Königsberg on 23 January 1750.
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Vasileios Ioannidis
1896 - 1963 (67 years)
Vasileios Ioannidis was a Greek theologian and professor. His research was focused on the analysis and the understanding of the New Testament. Ioannidis participated in the first three Assemblies of the World Council of Churches and was involved in the movement of Ecumenism.
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Claude Frassen
1620 - 1711 (91 years)
Claude Frassen was a French Franciscan Scotist theologian and philosopher. Life Frassen was born near Péronne, France. He entered the Franciscan Order at Peronne in his seventeenth year; and after the year of novitiate was sent to Paris, where he completed his studies and remained for thirty years as professor of philosophy and theology. In 1662 he was made doctor of the Sorbonne, and as definitor general, to which office he was elected in 1682, he took part in the general chapters of the order at Toledo and Rome.
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August Detlev Christian Twesten
1789 - 1876 (87 years)
August Detlev Christian Twesten was a Lutheran theologian of Germany. Biography He studied at the University of Kiel, and for a period of time, worked as a gymnasium teacher in Berlin. In 1814 he returned to Kiel as an associate professor of philosophy and theology, and soon ranked next to Claus Harms in the Lutheran church of Holstein. In 1835 he succeeded Friedrich Schleiermacher at the University of Berlin, and in 1850 became a member of the new supreme ecclesiastical council of the United Evangelical Church. He was one of the chief representatives of those who strive to reconcile the view...
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Pope Anastasius I
340 - 401 (61 years)
Pope Anastasius I was the bishop of Rome from 27 November 399 to his death on 19 December 401. Anastasius was born in Rome, and was the son of Maximus. He succeeded Siricius as Pope and condemned the writings of the Alexandrian theologian Origen shortly after their translation into Latin. He fought against these writings throughout his papacy, and in 400 he called a council to discuss them. The council agreed that Origen was not faithful to the Church.
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Karl Heim
1874 - 1958 (84 years)
Karl Heim was a professor of dogmatics at Münster and Tübingen. He retired in 1939. His idea of God controlling quantum events that do and would seem otherwise random has been seen as the precursor to much of the current studies on divine action. His current influence upon religion and science theology has been compared in degree to that of the physicist and theologian Ian Barbour and of the scientist and theological organizer Ralph Wendell Burhoe. His doctrine on the transcendence of God has been thought to anticipate important points of later religious and science discussions, including the application of Thomas Kuhn's idea of a paradigm to religion and Thomas F.
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Anastasius Sinaita
630 - 701 (71 years)
Anastasius Sinaita , also called Anastasius of Sinai or Anastasius the Sinaite, was a Greek writer, priest and abbot of Saint Catherine's Monastery on Mount Sinai. Life What little is known about his life is gathered from his own works. In Antiquity, he was often confused with the bishop and writer Anastasius I of Antioch , and the authorship of various works attributed to Anastasius of Sinai is still vigorously disputed. A canon has been tentatively accepted by modern scholars, but even among these Anastasian works there are spurious sections. His writings concern questions and answers about issues of Christian dogma, ritual, and lifestyle ; sermons; and exegesis.
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Johann Jakob Schudt
1664 - 1722 (58 years)
Johann Jakob Schudt was a German polyhistor and Orientalist. Life Schudt was born and died in Frankfurt am Main. He studied theology at Wittenberg, and went to Hamburg in 1684 to study Orientalia under Ezra Edzardi. He then settled in his native city as teacher in the gymnasium in which he had been educated, and of which he became rector in 1717.
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Bernardino Ochino
1487 - 1564 (77 years)
Bernardino Ochino was an Italian, who was raised a Roman Catholic and later turned to Protestantism and became a Protestant reformer. Biography Bernardino Ochino was born in Siena, the son of the barber Domenico Ochino, and at the age of 7 or 8, in around 1504, was entrusted to the order of Franciscan Friars. From 1510 he studied medicine at Perugia.
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Gustav Jensen
1845 - 1922 (77 years)
Gustav Margerth Jensen was a Norwegian priest, hymnologist, hymnwriter, seminary instructor, and liturgist. He is best known for his liturgy revision and hymnal publication. Gustav Jensen was born in Drammen, but he first started attending school in Arendal. He received his theology degree in 1868 and started teaching in Skoger. In 1874 he was appointed a curate at Old Aker Church. One year later he was engaged as a head instructor at the Practical Theological Seminary, where he taught liturgical studies, sermon instruction, and pastoral theology. In 1889 he became the priest at Trinity Chur...
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William of St-Thierry
1075 - 1148 (73 years)
William of Saint-Thierry, O. Cist was a twelfth-century Benedictine, theologian and mystic from Liège who became abbot of Saint-Thierry in France, and later joined the Cistercian Order. Biography William was born at Liège of a noble family between 1075 and 1080 , and died at Signy-l'Abbaye in 1148. He probably studied at the cathedral school in Reims, though some have argued it was at Laon, prior to his profession as a Benedictine monk. He became a monk with his brother Simon at the monastery of St. Nicaise, also in Reims, sometime after 1111. From here both eventually became abbots of other...
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Amleto Giovanni Cicognani
1883 - 1973 (90 years)
Amleto Giovanni Cicognani was an Italian Cardinal of the Catholic Church. He served as Vatican Secretary of State from 1961 to 1969, and Dean of the College of Cardinals from 1972 until his death. Cicognani was elevated to the cardinalate in 1958. His brother, Gaetano Cicognani, was also a cardinal. To date they are the last pair of brothers to serve together in the College of Cardinals.
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Isaac Backus
1724 - 1806 (82 years)
Isaac Backus was a leading Baptist minister during the era of the American Revolution who campaigned against state-established churches in New England. Little is known of his childhood. In "An account of the life of Isaac Backus" , he provides genealogical information and a chronicle of events leading to his religious conversion.
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Luke Joseph Hooke
1716 - 1796 (80 years)
Luke Joseph Hooke was a controversial Irish theologian, representing in Paris the "Catholicism of the Enlightenment". The laws of civil society should be so designed, he argued, to enable individuals to conform, through their own free will, to the natural rights ordained by God.
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Wilhelm Pauck
1901 - 1981 (80 years)
Wilhelm Pauck was a German-American church historian and historical theologian in the field of Reformation studies whose fifty-year teaching career reached from the University of Chicago and Union Theological Seminary, to Vanderbilt and Stanford universities. His impact was extended through frequent lectures and visiting appointments in the U.S. and Europe. Pauck served as a bridge between the historical-critical study of Protestant theology at the University of Berlin and U.S. universities, seminaries, and divinity schools. Combining high critical acumen with a keen sense of the drama of human history, in his prime Pauck was considered the Dean of historical theology in the United States.
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Hans Konrad von Orelli
1846 - 1912 (66 years)
Hans Konrad von Orelli was a Swiss theologian. He was born in Zurich and educated at Lausanne, Zurich and Erlangen. He also visited Tübingen for theology and Leipzig for oriental languages. In 1869 he was appointed preacher at the orphan house, Zurich, and in 1871 Privatdozent at the university. In 1873 he went to Basel as professor extraordinarius of theology, becoming ordinary professor in 1881. His chief work is on the Old Testament. He wrote a journal of Palestinian travel, Durchs Heilige Land ; Die alttestamentliche Weissagung wn der Vollendung des Goltesreiches , commentaries on Isaiah,...
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John McClintock
1814 - 1870 (56 years)
John McClintock was an American Methodist Episcopal theologian and educationalist, born in Philadelphia. Biography McClintock matriculated at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. Ill health, however, forced him to leave Wesleyan in his freshman year. Unable to return, he graduated subsequently from the University of Pennsylvania in 1835, and was assistant professor of mathematics , professor of mathematics , and professor of Latin and Greek in Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He opposed the Mexican–American War, as well as slavery, but did not consider himself an abolitionist.
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Andreas Essenius
1618 - 1677 (59 years)
Andreas Essenius was a Dutch Reformed theologian, controversialist and academic. He became professor of theology at the University of Utrecht. Life He was born Andreas van Essen in Zaltbommel where he studied Latin and Greek. He went on to the Latin school in Utrecht and then to the University of Utrecht where he was a student of Bernardus Schotanus and Gisbertus Voetius. In 1640 he received his doctorate, and was appointed as a minister in the little town of Neerlangbroek.
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