The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
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List of the most influential people in Theology,
#4651
August Wilhelm Knobel
1807 - 1863 (56 years)
August Wilhelm Karl Knobel was a German Protestant theologian born in Tzschecheln near Sorau, Niederlausitz. From 1826 he studied philosophy, philology and theology at the University of Breslau, earning his doctorate in 1831. Afterwards, he became a lecturer, and later an associate professor at Breslau. In 1838 he became a professor of theology at Breslau, and shortly afterwards relocated to the University of Giessen.
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Muhsin al-Hakim
1889 - 1970 (81 years)
Muhsin al-Tabatabaei al-Hakim was an Iraqi Shia religious authority. He became the leading marja' of Najaf in 1946 after the death of Abu al-Hasan al-Isfahani, and of the majority of the Shia world in 1961, after the death of Hossein Borujerdi.
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Johann Wilhelm Petersen
1649 - 1727 (78 years)
Johann Wilhelm Petersen was a German theologian, mystic, and Millennialist. Johann Wilhelm Petersen grew up in Lübeck and studied theology at the Katharineum in Lübeck, as well as in Giessen, Rostock, Leipzig, Wittenberg and Jena. He studied with Philipp Jakob Spener in Frankfurt, and they became friends in 1675. Through his affiliation with Spener, Petersen became interested in Pietism.
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Seakle Greijdanus
1871 - 1948 (77 years)
Seakle Greijdanus was a Reformed theologian in the Netherlands, who first served in the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands and later in the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands . Greijdanus was born in Arum, Friesland and studied theology at the Free University in Amsterdam, where he specialized in dogmatics.
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Edwards Amasa Park
1808 - 1900 (92 years)
Edwards Amasa Park was an American Congregational theologian. Biography Born in Providence, Rhode Island, Park was the son of Calvin Park . Edwards Amasa Park graduated at Brown University in 1826, was a teacher at Braintree for two years, and in 1831 graduated from Andover Theological Seminary. He was co-pastor of the orthodox Congregational church of Braintree in 1831-1833; professor of mental and moral philosophy at Amherst in 1835; and Bartlet professor of sacred rhetoric , and Abbot professor of Christian theology at Andover. He died at Andover on 4 June 1900.
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Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples
1450 - 1537 (87 years)
Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples was a French theologian and a leading figure in French humanism. He was a precursor of the Protestant movement in France. The "d'Étaples" was not part of his name as such, but used to distinguish him from Jacques Lefèvre of Deventer, a less significant contemporary who was a friend and correspondent of Erasmus. Both are also sometimes called by the German version of their name, Jacob/Jakob Faber. He himself had a sometimes tense relationship with Erasmus, whose work on Biblical translation and in theology closely paralleled his own.
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Édouard Guillaume Eugène Reuss
1804 - 1891 (87 years)
Edouard Guillaume Eugène Reuss was a Protestant theologian from Alsace. Life He was born at Strasbourg, where he studied philology . He went on to study theology at Göttingen under Johann Gottfried Eichhorn; and Oriental Languages at Halle under Wilhelm Gesenius, and afterwards at Paris under Silvestre de Sacy . In 1828 he became Privatdozent at Strasbourg. From 1829 to 1834 he taught Biblical criticism and Oriental languages at the Strasbourg Theological School; he then became assistant, and afterwards, in 1836, regular professor of theology at that university. He became Professor of Old Testament at the same institution in 1864.
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William Robertson Smith
1846 - 1894 (48 years)
William Robertson Smith was a Scottish orientalist, Old Testament scholar, professor of divinity, and minister of the Free Church of Scotland. He was an editor of the Encyclopædia Britannica and contributor to the Encyclopaedia Biblica. He is also known for his book Religion of the Semites, which is considered a foundational text in the comparative study of religion.
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Petrus Hofstede de Groot
1802 - 1886 (84 years)
Petrus Hofstede de Groot , Dutch theologian, was born at Leer in East Friesland, and was educated at the Gymnasium and University of Groningen. For three years he was pastor of the Reformed Church at Ulrum, and then entered upon his lifelong duties as professor of theology at Groningen. With his colleagues Louis Gerlach Pareau, Johan Frederik van Oordt, and Willem Muurling, he edited from 1837 to 1872 the Waarheid in Liefde. In this review and in his numerous books he vigorously upheld the orthodox faith against the Dutch "modern theology" movement. He became professor emeritus in 1872, and d...
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Martin Kähler
1835 - 1912 (77 years)
Martin Kähler was a German theologian. He is best known for his short work, published in 1892, Der sogenannte historische Jesus und der geschichtliche, biblische Christus . Kähler was born in Neuhausen near Königsberg and died in Freudenstadt. He had a profound impact upon the famous Protestant theologian, Paul Tillich.
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Friedrich von Hügel
1852 - 1925 (73 years)
Friedrich von Hügel was an influential Austrian Catholic layman, religious writer, and Christian apologist. Although classified with Modernistss due to his friendships with Alfred Loisy and George Tyrrell, von Hügel rejected the Modernist theory of belief.
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Martín de Azpilcueta
1492 - 1586 (94 years)
Martín de Azpilcueta , or Doctor Navarrus, was an important Spanish canonist and theologian in his time, and an early economist who independently formulated the quantity theory of money in 1556. Life He was born in Barásoain, Navarre, and was a relative of Francis Xavier. He obtained a degree in theology at Alcalá, then in 1518 he obtained a degree of doctor in canon law from Toulouse in France. Beginning in 1524, Azpilcueta served in several canon law chairs at the University of Salamanca. From 1538 to 1556, he taught at Coimbra University in Portugal, at the invitation of the kings of Portu...
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John Henry Cardinal Newman
#4664
Lady Amin
1886 - 1983 (97 years)
Hajiyeh Seyyedeh Nosrat Begum Amin, also known as Banu Amin, Lady Amin , was Iran's most outstanding female jurisprudent, theologian and great Muslim mystic of the 20th century, a Lady Mujtahideh. She received numerous ijazahs of ijtihad, among them from Ayatollahs Muḥammad Kazim Ḥusayni Shīrāzī and Grand Ayatullah ‘arif , the founder of the Qom seminaries . She also granted numerous ijazahs of ijtihad to female and male scholars, among them Sayyid Mar'ashi Najafi.
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Ludwig Adolf Petri
1803 - 1873 (70 years)
Petri, Ludwig Adolf was a German Neo-Lutheran clergyman. Life He was born at Lüthorst , and was educated at the University of Göttingen and, after being a private tutor for some time, became, in 1829, "collaborator" at the Kreuzkirche in Hanover, where he was assistant pastor from 1837 until 1851, and senior pastor from 1851 until his death. During the years 1830–37 his convictions gradually changed from rationalistic to orthodox. His power as a preacher was especially shown by his Licht des Lebens and Salz der Erde . For the improvement of the liturgy of his communion he wrote Bedürfnisse ...
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Ahmad Ghazali
1100 - 1126 (26 years)
Ahmad Ghazālī was a Sunni Muslim Persian Sufi mystic, writer, preacher and the head of Al-Nizamiyya of Baghdad . He is best known in the history of Islam for his ideas on love and the meaning of love, expressed primarily in the book Sawāneḥ.
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Siger of Brabant
1235 - 1284 (49 years)
Siger of Brabant was a 13th-century philosopher from the southern Low Countries who was an important proponent of Averroism. Life Early life Little is known about many of the details of his life. In 1266, he was attached to the Faculty of Arts in the University of Paris at the time when a riot erupted between the French and Picard "nations" of students—a series of loosely organized fraternities. The papal legate threatened Siger with execution as the ringleader of the Picard attack on the French, but no further action was taken.
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Sibrandus Lubbertus
1556 - 1625 (69 years)
Sibrandus Lubbertus was a Dutch Calvinist theologian and was a professor of theology at the University of Franeker for forty years from the institute's foundation in 1585. He was a prominent participant in the Synod of Dort . His primary works were to counter Roman Catholic doctrine and to oppose Socinianism and Arminianism.
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Bernhard Lichtenberg
1875 - 1943 (68 years)
Bernhard Lichtenberg was a German Catholic priest who became known for repeatedly speaking out, after the rise of Adolf Hitler and during the Holocaust, against the persecution and deportation of the Jews. After serving a jail sentence, he died in the custody of the Gestapo on his way to Dachau concentration camp. Raul Hilberg wrote: "Thus a solitary figure had made his singular gesture. In the buzz of rumormongers and sensation seekers, Bernhard Lichtenberg fought almost alone."
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Wilhelm Gass
1813 - 1889 (76 years)
Wilhelm Gass was a German theologian born in Breslau. He was the son of theologian Joachim Christian Gass . He received his education in Breslau, Halle and Berlin, and as a student was influenced by the teachings of August Neander . In 1846 he became an associate professor at the University of Breslau, and during the following year relocated to Greifswald, where in 1855 he achieved the title of professor ordinarius. In 1862 he was appointed professor of systematic theology at the University of Giessen, and in 1868 moved to Heidelberg as a successor to Richard Rothe . He died in 1889 in Heidel...
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Harald Høffding
1843 - 1931 (88 years)
Harald Høffding was a Danish philosopher and theologian. Life Born and educated in Copenhagen, he became a schoolmaster, and ultimately in 1883 a professor at the University of Copenhagen. He was strongly influenced by Søren Kierkegaard in his early development, but later became a positivist, retaining and combining with it the spirit and method of practical psychology and the critical school. The physicist Niels Bohr studied philosophy from and became a friend of Høffding. The philosopher and author Ágúst H. Bjarnason was a student of Høffding.
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Friedrich August Berthold Nitzsch
1832 - 1898 (66 years)
Friedrich August Berthold Nitzsch was a German theologian. The son of Karl Immanuel Nitzsch, he became professor ordinarius of theology at Gießen in 1868 and at Kiel in 1872. He was the author of Das System des Boethius and Grundriss der christlichen Dogmengeschichte, t. I, Die patristische Periode , amongst other texts.
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Johann Wilhelm Friedrich Höfling
1802 - 1853 (51 years)
Johann Wilhelm Friedrich Höfling was a German Lutheran theologian born in Neudrossenfeld, Bavaria. He specialized in the field of liturgical science. He studied philology and theology at Erlangen, and following his theological exam served as a vicar in Würzburg and as a minister in Nuremberg . In 1831 he earned his doctorate in philosophy at Tübingen, and in 1835 received his theological degree. In 1833 he was appointed professor of practical theology at the University of Erlangen. He died in Munich.
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Friedrich Adolph Lampe
1683 - 1729 (46 years)
Friedrich Adolph Lampe was a German Pietist pastor, theologian and professor of dogmatics. He was a Cocceian, and follower of Johannes d'Outrein. He is known as the first Pietist leader from a Calvinist rather than Lutheran background.
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Andrews Norton
1786 - 1853 (67 years)
Andrews Norton was an American preacher and theologian. Along with William Ellery Channing, he was the leader of mainstream Unitarianism of the early and middle 19th century, and was known as the "Unitarian Pope". He was the father of the writer Charles Eliot Norton.
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Christian Gottlob Wilke
1786 - 1854 (68 years)
Christian Gottlob Wilke was a German theologian. He studied philosophy and theology at the University of Leipzig, and from 1814 to 1819 served as a minister to a Saxon Landwehr installation. Afterwards he worked as a pastor in the hamlet of Hermannsdorf in the Ore Mountains.
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Hermann Kutter
1863 - 1931 (68 years)
Hermann Kutter was a Swiss Protestant theologian. Together with Leonhard Ragaz, he was one of the founders of Christian socialism in Switzerland. He was heavily influenced by Christoph Blumhardt. He combined Blumhardt's expectation of a coming Kingdom of God with a belief in socialist progress. He saw social democracy as a "tool" of the living God, and its followers as unwitting servants of God. He authored 11 books.
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George of Laodicea
320 - 361 (41 years)
George was the bishop of Laodicea in Syria from 335 until his deposition in 347. He took part in the Trinitarian controversies of the fourth century. At first an ardent admirer of the teaching of Arius and associated with Eusebius of Nicomedia, he subsequently became a semi-Arian, but seems ultimately to have united with the Anomoeans, whose uncompromising opponent he had once been, and to have died professing their tenets.
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Franz Hettinger
1819 - 1890 (71 years)
Franz Hettinger was a German Catholic theologian. Life He attended the gymnasium in his native city and afterwards, from 1836 to 1839, the academy in the same city, where he finished philosophy and began theology. As the teaching of the latter science was discontinued in this academy in 1839, he entered the ecclesiastical seminary at Würzburg and continued his studies there from the autumn of 1839 to that of 1841.
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Richard of Saint Victor
1110 - 1173 (63 years)
Richard of Saint Victor was a Medieval Scottish philosopher and theologian and one of the most influential religious thinkers of his time. A canon regular, he was a prominent mystical theologian, and was prior of the famous Augustinian Abbey of Saint Victor in Paris from 1162 until his death in 1173.
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Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange
1877 - 1964 (87 years)
Réginald Marie Garrigou-Lagrange was a French Dominican friar, philosopher and theologian. Garrigou-Lagrange was a neo-Thomist theologian, recognized along with Édouard Hugon and Martin Grabmann as distinguished theologians of the 20th century. As professor at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, he taught dogmatic and spiritual theology in Rome from 1909 to 1959. There he wrote The Three Ages of the Interior Life in 1938.
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Thomas Boston
1676 - 1732 (56 years)
Thomas Boston was a Scottish Presbyterian church leader, theologian and philosopher. Boston was successively schoolmaster at Glencairn, and minister of Simprin in Berwickshire, and Ettrick in Selkirkshire. In addition to his best-known work, The Fourfold State, one of the religious classics of Scotland, he wrote an original little book, The Crook in the Lot, and a learned treatise on the Hebrew points. He also took a leading part in the Courts of the Church in what was known as the "Marrow Controversy," regarding the merits of an English work, The Marrow of Modern Divinity, which he defended against the attacks of the "Moderate" party in the Church.
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Benedict Welte
1805 - 1885 (80 years)
Benedict Welte was a German Catholic exegete. After studying at Tübingen and Bonn, where he made special studies in the exegesis of the Old Testament and in Oriental languages, he was ordained priest when twenty-eight years old. Soon after this he became assistant lecturer at Tübingen, and in 1840 regular professor of Old Testament exegesis.
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Francisco Javier Quintanilla
1833 - Present (193 years)
Francisco Javier Quintanilla was a Chilean priest. Born in Rancagua, he did his ecclesiastical studies at the Seminario Conciliar in Santiago. He published two notable religious works, Tradicionalismo and Historia de la Teolojia. He was a member of the Faculty of Theology and Sacred Sciences at the University of Chile.
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Erich Schaeder
1861 - 1936 (75 years)
Erich Schaeder was a German Protestant theologian. He studied theology at the universities of Berlin and Greifswald, where in 1891 he qualified as a lecturer. In 1894 he became an associate professor of theology at the University of Königsberg, and later on, served as a full professor at the universities of Kiel and Breslau .
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Harris Franklin Rall
1870 - 1964 (94 years)
Harris Franklin Rall , Ph.D. was the first president of Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado after it reopened in 1910 till 1915, and he also served as the Henry White Warren professor of Practical Theology. Rall later became president of Garrett Biblical Institute in Evanston, Illinois, and taught theology there. Rall was active in the social gospel movement, seeking to relate Christianity to the ills of society. Garrett named its lecture series after him.
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Johannes Weiss
1863 - 1914 (51 years)
Johannes Weiss was a German Protestant theologian and biblical exegete. He was a member of the history of religions school. History Weiss was born in Kiel as son of Bernhard Weiss. A perpetual scholar, he studied in the University of Marburg, the University of Berlin, the University of Göttingen, and the University of Breslau. He then taught as a professor at Göttingen since 1890, at Marburg since 1895, and since 1908 at the University of Heidelberg. He wrote many influential books and papers, and was instrumental in the development of New Testament biblical criticism. He was held in the high...
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Heinrich Heppe
1820 - 1879 (59 years)
Heinrich Ludwig Julius Heppe was a German Calvinist theologian and church historian. In 1844 he earned his doctorate from the University of Marburg, where he was a student of Orientalist Hermann Hupfeld . From 1845 he served as a pastor at St. Martin Church in Kassel. In 1850 he became an associate professor of theology at Marburg, where he attained full professorship in 1864.
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Pope Clement VI
1291 - 1352 (61 years)
Pope Clement VI , born Pierre Roger, was head of the Catholic Church from 7 May 1342 to his death, in December 1352. He was the fourth Avignon pope. Clement reigned during the first visitation of the Black Death , during which he granted remission of sins to all who died of the plague.
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George Park Fisher
1827 - 1909 (82 years)
George Park Fisher was an American theologian and historian who was noted as a teacher and a prolific writer. Biography He was born in Wrentham, Massachusetts. He graduated from Brown University in 1847, and then studied theology at Yale Divinity School and the Andover Theological Seminary. He graduated from the latter institution in 1851. In 1853 he visited Germany, where he continued his theological studies.
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Antipope John XXIII
1370 - 1419 (49 years)
Baldassarre Cossa was Pisan antipope John XXIII during the Western Schism. The Catholic Church regards him as an antipope, as he opposed Pope Gregory XII whom the Catholic Church now recognizes as the rightful successor of Saint Peter. He was also an opponent of Antipope Benedict XIII, who was recognized by the French clergy and monarchy as the legitimate Pontiff.
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Aiyadurai Jesudasen Appasamy
1891 - 1975 (84 years)
Aiyadurai Jesudasen Appasamy was an Indian Christian theologian, and bishop of the Church of South India in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu. He was a member of the 'Rethinking Christianity Group', and sought to reconcile Christian with Hindu philosophies. He interpreted Christianity as 'bhaktimarga'.
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Peter Joseph Elvenich
1796 - 1886 (90 years)
Peter Joseph Elvenich was a German Catholic theologian and philosopher born in Embken, a village that today is part of Nideggen, North Rhine-Westphalia. He was a principal supporter and defender of Hermesianism, a theological belief system based on the teachings of Georg Hermes .
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Christoph Daniel Ebeling
1741 - 1817 (76 years)
Christoph Daniel Ebeling was a scholar of Germany who studied the geography and history of North America. Biography Ebeling was born near Hildesheim, Hanover. He studied theology at Göttingen, but devoted himself to geographical studies, and for 33 years taught history and Greek in the Hamburg gymnasium. He was also superintendent of the Hamburg library, and collected about 10,000 maps and nearly 4,000 books relating to America. Ebeling's magnum opus was a Geography and History of North America , forming a continuation of Büsching's General Geography. He received a vote of thanks from the Uni...
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Jonathan Edwards
1745 - 1801 (56 years)
Jonathan Edwards was an American theologian and linguist. Life and career Born in Northampton, Massachusetts Bay, he was the ninth child and second son of Jonathan Edwards and Sarah Edwards. In 1751, the family moved to Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where his exposure to language variation began. Both of Edwards' parents died during the year of 1758. He graduated from Princeton in 1765, after which he studied theology under Joseph Bellamy of Bethlehem, Connecticut. He was a tutor at Princeton from 1767 to 1769, and a pastor in New Haven, Connecticut from 1769 to 1795, where he was dismissed from this position due to doctrinal conflicts in the church.
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Johann Baptista Baltzer
1803 - 1871 (68 years)
Johann Baptista Baltzer was a German Catholic theologian. Biography He was born at Andernach, and studied at the University of Bonn, which he left in 1827. After his ordination to the priesthood in 1829, he received a degree of D.D. from the University of Munich in 1830, and also was made professor of theology at the University of Breslau in that year. He was at first an enthusiastic follower of Georg Hermes in his attempt to reconcile the newer German philosophy with the Roman Catholic teaching, but definitely broke with his school in 1839 and associated himself with the speculations of Ant...
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G. B. Caird
1917 - 1984 (67 years)
George Bradford Caird , known as G. B. Caird, was a British theologian, biblical scholar and Congregational minister. At the time of his death he was Dean Ireland's Professor of the Exegesis of Holy Scripture at the University of Oxford.
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James Robinson Graves
1820 - 1893 (73 years)
James Robinson Graves was an American Baptist preacher, publisher, evangelist, debater, author, and editor. He is most noted as the original founder of what is now the Southwestern family of companies. Graves was born in Chester, Vermont, the son of Z. C. Graves, and died in Memphis, Tennessee. His remains are interred in Elmwood Cemetery in Memphis.
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Rudolf Ewald Stier
1800 - 1862 (62 years)
Rudolf Ewald Stier , was a German Protestant churchman and mystic. Stier was born at Fraustadt in South Prussia and studied at the University of Halle and Humboldt University, Berlin, first law and afterwards theology; he continued his theological studies later at the pastoral seminary of Wittenberg. In 1824 he was made professor at the Missionary Institute in Basel. Afterwards he held pastorates at Frankleben near Merseburg and at Wichlinghausen . In 1850 he was appointed superintendent at Schkeuditz, and in 1859 at Eisleben.
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Johann Heinrich Kurtz
1809 - 1890 (81 years)
Johann Heinrich Kurtz was a German Lutheran theologian. Kurtz was born in Monschau near Aachen and educated at Halle and Bonn. Abandoning the idea of a commercial career, he gave himself to the study of theology and became religious instructor at the gymnasium of Mitau in 1835, and ordinary professor of theology at Dorpat. He resigned his chair in 1870 and went to live at Marburg.
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