The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.
Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.
We also provide custom rankings of people by discipline as well as interviews with influential academics who are currently active.
To use this tool, select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) relevant to your research, and specify influential academics by history, world, or US. Even results that are counterintuitive are often enlightening (our algorithm always picks up a signal).
Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …
See additional learning tools, study tips, features on campus life and much more at our Student Resources Headquarters.
List of the most influential people in Theology,
#4901
Hans Gerhard Stub
1849 - 1931 (82 years)
Hans Gerhard Stub was an American Lutheran theologian and church leader. He served as Bishop of the Norwegian Lutheran Church in America. Background Hans Gerhard Stub was born in Muskego, Wisconsin. His parents were Lutheran Pastor Hans Andreas Stub and Ingeborg Margrethe Arentz , both immigrants from Norway. Hans Stub was born in an immigrant cabin in Wisconsin. He was shaped from childhood by the life within the Norwegian Synod, which his father had help found in 1853. He studied for a time in Norway at the Bergen Cathedral School.
Go to Profile#4902
Rowland Williams
1817 - 1870 (53 years)
Rowland Williams was a Welsh theologian and educationalist. He was vice-principal and Professor of Hebrew at St David's College, Lampeter, from 1849 to 1862 and one of the most influential theologians of the nineteenth century. He supported biblical criticism and pioneered comparative religious studies in Britain. He was also a priest in the Church of England, and the vicar of Broad Chalke in Wiltshire, where he is buried. Williams is also credited with introducing rugby football to Wales; Lampeter's team was the first to be established in the nation.
Go to Profile#4903
Carl Clemen
1865 - 1940 (75 years)
Carl Christian Clemen , best known as Carl Clemen, was a German theologian and religious historian. He was a member of the history of religions school. Career Clemen was Professor of New Testament and religious history at the University of Bonn. He was a critic of the Christ myth theory and refuted the arguments of Arthur Drews, Peter Jensen and other mythicists. He was also critical of the ideas of Anthroposophy and Theosophy.
Go to Profile#4904
Alan Richardson
1905 - 1975 (70 years)
Alan Richardson, was a British Anglican priest and academic. From 1964 to 1975, he served as Dean of York. Early life and education Richardson was educated at Liverpool University, Exeter College, Oxford and Ridley Hall, Cambridge.
Go to Profile#4905
Anton Fridrichsen
1888 - 1953 (65 years)
Anton Johnson Fridrichsen was a Norwegian-born Swedish theologian. Biography He was born at Meråker in Trøndelag, Norway. He became cand. theol. in 1911 and then studied ancient Christian theology and classical philology at the University of Breslau and the University of Göttingen. In 1925 he received his theological doctorate from the University of Strasbourg. He was appointed professor of exegesis at the Uppsala University from 1928. Among his works are Hagios-Qadoš from 1916, and his thesis from 1925 Le Problème du miracle dans le christianisme primitif .
Go to Profile#4906
Henry Augustus Boardman
1808 - 1880 (72 years)
Henry Augustus Boardman was an American minister and author. Boardman was born in Troy, N Y, January 9, 1808. His parents were John Boardman and Clarinda Starbuck, and he often said that he was the product of a Puritan father and a Quaker mother. He graduated from Yale College in 1829. In the fall of 1830 he entered the Theological Seminary in Princeton, N. J., and in April 1833, was licensed to preach. In September 1833, he was called to the pastorate of the Tenth Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia, over which he was duly installed, November 8, 1833, and of which he continued in charge until May 1876, when he became Pastor Emeritus.
Go to Profile#4907
Leopold Ackermann
1771 - 1831 (60 years)
Leopold Ackermann , known by his cloistral name as Petrus Fourerius, was a professor of exegesis. He entered on 10 October 1790 in the choral order of Klosterneuburg and studied from 1791-1795 in Vienna. In the following, he became priest and professor for oriental languages at the Stiftshof in Vienna, in 1800 also librarian. He earned his doctorate in theology in 1802, and in 1806 a professorship in exegesis, continuing for 25 years.
Go to Profile#4908
Karl Bornhäuser
1868 - 1947 (79 years)
Karl Bornhäuser was a German New Testament theologian. He studied theology at the universities of Halle and Greifswald, where he was a student of Hermann Cremer. He worked as a clergyman in Sinsheim and Karlsruhe , and as a regional pastor in Rastatt . In 1902 he became an associate professor of systematic and practical theology at the University of Greifswald, and from 1907 to 1933, he taught classes as a full professor at the University of Marburg. From 1912 onward, he was a member of the consistory in Kassel.
Go to Profile#4909
John Brande Morris
1812 - 1880 (68 years)
John Brande Morris, known to friends as Jack Morris was an English Anglican theologian, later a Roman Catholic priest. He was a noted academic eccentric, but an important scholar of Syriac. Life He studied at Balliol College, Oxford, graduating in 1834 and 1837 . He was then elected Petrean Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford, lecturing on Hebrew and Syriac.
Go to Profile#4910
V. A. Demant
1893 - 1983 (90 years)
Vigo Auguste Demant , known as V. A. Demant, was an English Anglican priest, theologian, and social commentator. He was one of the 14 committee members who served on the Wolfenden Report on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution.
Go to Profile#4911
Johann Georg Conrad Oberdieck
1794 - 1880 (86 years)
Johann Georg Conrad Oberdieck was a German clergyman and pomologist. From 1812 to 1815 he studied theology at the University of Göttingen, and following graduation, served as a subconrector at Michaelisschule in Lüneburg. Several years later he became a pastor in Bardowick, and afterwards worked as an ecclesiastical superintendent in Sulingen and Nienburg/Weser . In 1853 he relocated to the community of Jeinsen as a superintendent.
Go to Profile#4912
John Mason Neale
1818 - 1866 (48 years)
John Mason Neale was an English Anglican priest, scholar, and hymnwriter. He worked and wrote on a wide range of holy Christian texts, including obscure medieval hymns, both Western and Eastern. Among his most famous hymns is the 1853 Good King Wenceslas, set on Boxing Day. An Anglo-Catholic, Neale's works have found positive reception in high-church Anglicanism and Western Rite Orthodoxy.
Go to Profile#4913
John Dick
1764 - 1833 (69 years)
John Dick was a Scottish minister and theological writer. Life He was born on 10 October 1764 at Aberdeen, where his father was minister of the associate congregation of seceders. His mother was Helen Tolmie, daughter of Captain Tolmie of Aberdeen. Educated at the grammar school and King's College, Aberdeen, he studied for the ministry of the Secession church, under John Brown of Haddington.
Go to Profile#4914
Valentin Alberti
1635 - 1697 (62 years)
Valentin Alberti was a Lutheran, orthodox philosopher and theologian from Silesia and was the son of a preacher. He is known for defending Lutheran orthodoxy against the natural law views of Hugo Grotius, Samuel von Pufendorf and Christian Thomasius, and being an active polemicist against Roman Catholicism.
Go to Profile#4915
Juan Luis Maneiro
1744 - 1802 (58 years)
Juan Luis Maneiro was a Mexican Jesuit teacher, scholar, biographer, theologian, and poet. After the expulsion of the Jesuits from Spanish provinces , he went to Italy, where he wrote Latin biographies of illustrious Mexican Jesuits.
Go to Profile#4916
Willem Kremer
1896 - 1985 (89 years)
Willem Kremer was a Dutch pastor of the Christian Reformed Churches and a professor of practical theology at the Theological University of Apeldoorn. Life and work Willem Kremer was born in Zwolle. His father, Gerrit Kremer, worked as a gardener and inspired him to pursue gardening. After the completion of his studies, he worked in greenhouses in Wassenaar, where he contracted the Spanish flu. During his illness, he discovered a passion for religion. In 1926, he completed his studies of theology in Apeldoorn and became a Christian Reformed minister in Kornhorn. In Kornhorn he was confirmed by his mentor professor Jacob Jan van der Schuit.
Go to Profile#4917
Johann Matthäus Meyfart
1590 - 1642 (52 years)
Johann Matthäus Meyfart, also Johann Matthaeus Meyfahrt, Mayfart was a German Lutheran theologist, educator, academic teacher, hymn writer and minister. He was an opponent fighter of witch trials. Career Meyfart was born in Jena, the son of a minister, and studied at the University of Jena from 1608, first the liberal arts graduating in 1603, then theology, continued at the University of Wittenberg from 1614. He taught from 1617 at the Gymnasium in Coburg, serving as its Rektor from 1623.
Go to Profile#4918
Edward Cardwell
1787 - 1861 (74 years)
Edward Cardwell was an English theologian also noted for his contributions to the study of English church history. In addition to his scholarly work, he filled various administrative positions in the University of Oxford.
Go to Profile#4919
Francis Lambert
1486 - 1530 (44 years)
Francis Lambert was a Protestant reformer, the son of a papal official at Avignon, where he was born between 1485 and 1487. At the age of 15 he entered the Franciscan monastery at Avignon, and after 1517 he was an itinerant preacher, travelling through France, Italy and Switzerland. Lambert's study of the Scriptures shook his faith in Roman Catholic theology, and by 1522 he had abandoned his order, and became known to the leaders of the Reformation in Switzerland and Germany. He did not, however, identify himself either with Zwinglianism or Lutheranism; he debated with Huldrych Zwingli at Zür...
Go to Profile#4920
Jacobus Latomus
1475 - 1544 (69 years)
Jacobus Latomus was a Catholic Flemish theologian, a distinguished member of the Faculty of Theology at the University of Leuven. Latomus was a theological adviser to the Inquisition, and his exchange with William Tyndale is particularly noted. The general focus of his academic work centered on opposing Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation, supporting the papacy and the hierarchy of the Catholic Church. Etymology: Latinized Latomus = Masson from Greek lā-tómos 'stone-cutter, quarryman', thus 'mason'.
Go to Profile#4921
Hans von Campenhausen
1903 - 1989 (86 years)
Hans Erich Freiherr von Campenhausen was a German Baltic Protestant theologian. He is one of the most important Protestant ecclesiastical historians of the 20th century. Life and work Hans von Campenhausen came from the landowning nobility. Born in Rosenbeck, Livonia, Campenhausen's family escaped to Germany during the Russian Revolution. He graduated from high school in Heidelberg in 1922, and went on to study theology and history at the universities of Heidelberg and Marburg where he was particularly influenced by the theologians Rudolf Bultmann, Hans Freiherr von Soden and Martin Dibelius....
Go to Profile#4922
Niels Hemmingsen
1513 - 1600 (87 years)
Niels Hemmingsen was a Danish Lutheran theologian. He was pastor of the Church of the Holy Ghost, Copenhagen and professor at the University of Copenhagen. The street Niels Hemmingsens Gade in Copenhagen is named in his honor.
Go to Profile#4923
Feliks Suk
1845 - 1915 (70 years)
Feliks Suk was Croatian university professor and rector of the University of Zagreb. It was Zagreb archbishop and cardinal Juraj Haulik who enabled young Suk a study of theology in Innsbruck. He was ordained for a priest in 1868. He received his Ph.D. in 1870. He conducted various jobs in the Zagreb Archdiocese, before he became a professor of moral theology at the newly established Royal University of Franz Joseph I. He served as a dean of the Faculty of Theology in two mandates. In the academic year 1882/1883 he served as a rector of the University of Zagreb, and the following academic year...
Go to Profile#4924
Hugh Broughton
1549 - 1612 (63 years)
Hugh Broughton was an English scholar and theologian. Early life He was born at Owlbury, Bishop's Castle, Shropshire. He called himself a Cambrian, implying Welsh blood in his veins. He was educated by Bernard Gilpin at Houghton-le-Spring and at Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he matriculated in 1570. The foundation of his Hebrew learning was laid, in his first year at Cambridge, by his attendance on the lectures of the French scholar Antoine Rodolphe Chevallier.
Go to Profile#4925
Otto Flügel
1842 - 1914 (72 years)
Otto Flügel was a German philosopher and theologian. Biography He studied at Schulpforta and Halle, and took up pastoral work. He was made editor of the Zeitschrift für exacte Philosophie im Sinne des Neueren Philosophischen Realismus , and in 1894 was one of the founders of Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Pädagogik. He was a supporter of Herbartian realism, as opposed to New-Kantian speculations, yet he believed in the necessity of a revelation.
Go to Profile#4926
Gustavus Waffelaert
1847 - 1931 (84 years)
Gustave Joseph Waffelaert was the 22nd bishop of Bruges in Belgium. Life Waffelaert was born in Rollegem on 27 August 1847. After attending St Vincent's college, Ypres, and the Minor Seminary, Roeselare he entered the Major Seminary, Bruges. He was ordained to the priesthood in Bruges on 17 December 1870, and from 1871 to 1875 served as an assistant priest in the parish of Blankenberge.
Go to Profile#4927
Johann Bollig
1821 - 1895 (74 years)
Johann Bollig was a German advisor of Pope Pius IX in the lead up to the First Vatican Council. Bollig was born near Düren, Rhenish Prussia, and died in Rome, Italy. Prior to his time as a Pontifical Theologian he served as a theology professor in Syria.
Go to Profile#4928
Albert Eichhorn
1856 - 1926 (70 years)
Karl Albert August Ludwig Eichhorn was a German Protestant theologian. He was the author of Das Abendmahl im Neuen Testament and one of the founders of the history of religions school, an approach that sought to understand all religions, including Christianity and Judaism, as socio-cultural phenomena that developed in comparable ways. His pioneering work on the role of the contemporary needs, beliefs, and culture that shaped the New Testament reports of the Last Supper argued that this early Christian sacramental meal reflected the influence of Near Eastern gnostic ideas.
Go to Profile#4929
Nikephoros Theotokis
1731 - 1800 (69 years)
Nikephoros Theotokis or Nikiforos Theotokis was a Greek scholar and theologian, who became an archbishop in the southern provinces of the Russian Empire. A polymath, he is respected by the Greek Orthodox church as one of the "teachers of the nation".
Go to Profile#4930
Jean-Baptiste Cotelier
1626 - 1686 (60 years)
Jean-Baptiste Cotelier or Cotelerius was a Patristic scholar and Catholic theologian. Life His early education was under the personal direction of his father, at one time a Protestant minister, but later a convert to Catholicism. He was reportedly able to interpret the Bible in the original Hebrew and Greek before the General Assembly of the French clergy in Mantes ; he made such a favourable impression on the clergy that they increased his father's pension. During the period of his theological studies at Paris , Cotelier's intellectual qualities procured for him an introduction to the king .
Go to Profile#4931
Jaan Kiivit Sr.
1906 - 1971 (65 years)
Jaan Kiivit Senior was an Estonian prelate who was the Archbishop of Tallinn and the first primate of the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church from 1949 and 1967, after the break away from the exiled Estonian Evangelium's Lutheran Church.
Go to Profile#4932
Robert Knight Rudolph
1906 - 1986 (80 years)
Robert Knight Rudolph was an American Reformed Episcopal minister and theologian. He served as Professor of Systematic Theology and Christian Ethics at the Theological Seminary of the Reformed Episcopal Church in Philadelphia for forty-nine years before his retirement in 1981. Together Rudolph and his father trained men for the gospel ministry at this institution for a total of seventy-four years. Rudolph was known for his strict adherence to Calvinism and presuppositional apologetics.
Go to Profile#4933
Friedrich Spanheim the Younger
1632 - 1701 (69 years)
Friedrich Spanheim the Younger was a German Calvinist theologian of conservative views, son of Friedrich Spanheim. Life He was born in Geneva, and studied at the University of Leiden, graduating M.A. in 1648. He joined the faculty of the University of Heidelberg in 1655.
Go to Profile#4934
Eelco Alta
1723 - 1798 (75 years)
Eelco Alta was a Frisian clergyman, theologian, and veterinarian. Education Eelco Alta was born in 1723 in the coastal village of Makkum, and studied theology at the University of Franeker from 1737 until 1745, when he started as a minister in the nearby villages of Beers and Jellum. After nine years he moved to the main protestant church of Boazum, where he was to spend almost all of the next fifty years. He was politically active in the last years of the Dutch Republic, siding with the forces of republican "Patriotism", partly for religious reasons. During the royalist backlash of the late...
Go to Profile#4935
Mark Hopkins
1802 - 1887 (85 years)
Mark Hopkins was an American educator and Congregationalist theologian, president of Williams College from 1836 to 1872. An epigram — widely attributed to President James A. Garfield, a student of Hopkins — defined an ideal college as "Mark Hopkins on one end of a log and a student on the other."
Go to Profile#4936
Bernard Joseph Topel
1903 - 1986 (83 years)
Bernard Joseph Topel was an American prelate of the Catholic Church. He served as bishop of the Diopcese of Spokane in Washington State from 1955 to 1978. Biography Early life Topel was born on March 31, 1903, in Bozeman, Montana, the fourth son of Henry Albert and Mary Pauline Topel. Henry Topel was a tailor who had immigrated from Germany in 1878. Mary Topel immigrated from Switzerland at age nine. Bernard Topel attended grade school in Bozeman and, after graduating from St. Charles High School in Helena, studied at Mount St. Charles College in Helena, Montana. He then studied theology at the Grand Seminary of Montreal in Montreal, Quebec.
Go to Profile#4937
Alexander Henderson
1583 - 1646 (63 years)
Alexander Henderson was a Scottish theologian, and an important ecclesiastical statesman of his period. He is considered the second founder of the Reformed Church in Scotland. He was one of the most eminent ministers of the Church of Scotland in the most important period of her history, namely, previous to the middle of the seventeenth century.
Go to Profile#4938
Karl Gottfried Wilhelm Theile
1799 - 1854 (55 years)
Karl Gottfried Wilhelm Theile was a German theologian. From 1817 to 1823 he studied at the University of Leipzig, where he subsequently received his PhD and degree in theology . From 1826 to 1845 he was an associate professor of Evangelical theology at Leipzig, followed by a full professorship in the same discipline from 1845 up until his death in 1854. In 1851/52 he was dean to the theological faculty at Leipzig.
Go to Profile#4939
Robert Moberly
1845 - 1903 (58 years)
Robert Campbell Moberly was an English theologian and the first principal of St Stephen's House, Oxford . Life He was the son of George Moberly, Bishop of Salisbury, and faithfully maintained the traditions of his father's teaching. His sister was the writer Charlotte Anne Moberly. Educated at Twyford School, Winchester and New College, Oxford, he was appointed senior student of Christ Church in 1867 and tutor in 1869. In 1876 he went out with Bishop Copleston to Ceylon for six months.
Go to Profile#4940
Simon Goulart
1543 - 1628 (85 years)
Simon Goulart was a French Reformed theologian, humanist and poet. Life He was born at Senlis in northern France. He first studied law, then adopted the Reformed faith and became one of the pastors at Geneva in the Republic of Geneva . He was called to Antwerp, to Orange, to Montpellier and to Nîmes as minister, and to Lausanne as professor; but remained at Geneva and became a citizen.
Go to Profile#4941
Thomas Kerchever Arnold
1800 - 1853 (53 years)
Thomas Kerchever Arnold was an English theologian and voluminous writer of educational works. Life Arnold was born in 1800. His father, Thomas Graham Arnold, was a doctor of Stamford. He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, was seventh junior optime in the mathematical tripos of 1821, and was elected fellow of his college shortly afterwards. He took his degree of B.A. in the same year, and that of M.A. in 1824. In 1830 he was presented to the living of Lyndon, in Rutland, where his parishioners only numbered one hundred. He at first devoted his ample leisure to theology, and showed himself an obstinate opponent of the views advanced by the leaders of the Oxford movement.
Go to Profile#4942
Paul Wernle
1872 - 1939 (67 years)
Paul Wernle was a Swiss theologian, born in Hottingen, today part of the city of Zürich. He studied at the Universities of Basel, Berlin and Göttingen. At Basel he was a student of Bernhard Duhm , and in Göttingen was influenced by Wilhelm Bousset . In 1900 he became an associate professor at Basel, where in 1905 he was appointed a full professor of New Testament Studies. During the course of his career he also taught classes in dogmatics and church history.
Go to Profile#4943
George Bush
1796 - 1859 (63 years)
George Bush was an American biblical scholar, pastor, abolitionist, and academic. A member of the Bush family, he is a distant relative of both President George H. W. Bush and President George W. Bush.
Go to Profile#4944
Franz Anton Knittel
1721 - 1792 (71 years)
Franz Anton Knittel was a German, Lutheran orthodox theologian, priest, and palaeographer. He examined palimpsests' text of the Codex Guelferbytanus 64 Weissenburgensis and deciphered text of Codex Carolinus. He was the author of many works.
Go to Profile#4945
Julian Joseph Overbeck
1821 - 1905 (84 years)
Julian Joseph Overbeck was a Roman Catholic priest who converted to Eastern Orthodoxy and became a pioneer of Western Rite Orthodoxy. The modern re-emergence of an Orthodox Western Rite begins in 1864 with the work of Overbeck, a former Catholic priest. Overbeck had left the priesthood, converted to Lutheranism and married, though it is uncertain whether he ever functioned as a Lutheran pastor. He immigrated to England in 1863 to become professor of German at the Royal Military Academy, where he also undertook studies of the Church of England and Orthodoxy. Convinced that both the papacy and ...
Go to Profile#4946
Israel Gottlieb Canz
1690 - 1753 (63 years)
Israel Gottlieb Canz was a Protestant theologian and philosopher of Germany. Life Israel Gottlieb Canz was born on 26 February 1690, at Grünthal. He studied at Tübingen, and took, in 1709, the degree of doctor of philosophy. In 1720 he was deacon at Nürtingen, and was, in 1734, appointed professor of elocution at Tübingen. In 1739 he was made professor of logic and metaphysics, and in 1747 professor of theology. He died there, on 2 February 1753, at the age of 62.
Go to Profile#4947
Olive Winchester
1879 - 1947 (68 years)
Olive May Winchester was an American ordained minister and a pioneer biblical scholar and theologian in the Church of the Nazarene, who was in 1912 the first woman ordained by any trinitarian Christian denomination in the United Kingdom, the first woman admitted into and graduated from the Bachelor of Divinity course at the University of Glasgow, and the first woman to complete a Doctor of Theology degree from the divinity school of Drew University.
Go to Profile#4948
Jacob van Hoogstraaten
1460 - 1527 (67 years)
Jacob van Hoogstraten was a Flemish Dominican theologian and controversialist. Education, professor Van Hoogstraten was born in Hoogstraten, Burgundian Netherlands . He studied the classics and theology with the Dominicans at Old University of Leuven. In 1485 was among the first in the history of that institution to receive the degree of Master of Arts. He there entered the order, and after his ordination to the priesthood in 1496, he matriculated in the University of Cologne to continue his theological studies. At the general chapter held in 1498 at Ferrara he was appointed professor of theology at the Dominican college of Cologne.
Go to Profile#4949
Paul Drews
1858 - 1912 (54 years)
Paul Gottfried Drews was a German Lutheran theologian. He studied theology at the Thomasschule zu Leipzig and at the University of Göttingen, then served as a pastor in Burkau and Dresden . In 1894 he became an associate professor of practical theology at the University of Jena, followed by full professorships at Giessen and Halle .
Go to Profile#4950
Ericus Olai
1401 - 1486 (85 years)
Ericus Olai was a Swedish theologian and historian. He served as a professor of theology at Uppsala University and dean at Uppsala Cathedral. Ericus Olai was the author of the chronicle Chronica regni Gothorum and was an early proponent of Gothicismus.
Go to Profile