WSeyed Mostafa Azmayesh is a French-Iranian jurist scholar and researcher. and is known for his research in the field of Gnosticism, Islam and Christianity. As a human rights activist, he has pushed for reform within fundamentalist regimes, such as Iran, and the reform of social or legal practices that are in violation of human rights.
WPhilip Layton Barlow is a Harvard-trained scholar who specializes in American Religious History, religious geography, and Mormonism. In 2019, Barlow was appointed associate director of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship. Barlow was the first full-time professor of Mormon studies at a secular university as the inaugural Leonard J. Arrington Chair of Mormon History and Culture at Utah State University (USU), from 2007 to 2018.
WTheophilus (Gottlieb) Siegfried Bayer(1694–1738), was a German classical scholar with specialization in Sinology. He was a Sinologist and professor of Greek and Roman Antiquities at St Petersburg Academy of Sciences between 1726 and 1737.
WCatherine Bell was an American religious studies scholar who specialised in the study of Chinese religions and ritual studies. From 1985 until her death she worked at Santa Clara University's religious studies department, of which she was chair from 2000 to 2005.
WWard Blanton is an American scholar living in the UK and Reader in Biblical Cultures and European Thought at the University of Kent. He is known for his research on the Biblical studies and philosophy of religion.
WIan Campbell Bradley is a retired British academic, author, theologian, Church of Scotland minister, journalist and broadcaster. At the University of St Andrews, he was Professor of Cultural and Spiritual History, and was previously Principal of St Mary's College and a University chaplain. He also served as the associate minister of Holy Trinity Church, St Andrews.
WThe Rev. Prof. Allen Brent is a scholar of early Christian history and literature. He is a Fellow of St Edmund's College, Cambridge, formerly Dean (2012-2013), was an Affiliated Lecturer in the Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge in 1998-2010. At present he is Professor in Early Christian History and Iconography at King's College London where he is joint researcher, on a two year BARDA project: Early Christian Epigraphy and Iconography after Dölger. He is also Professore Invitato at the Augustinianum, Rome. He was formerly Principal Lecturer in Philosophy at University of Huddersfield, and has previously been Professor of History at James Cook University. He was ordained a deacon for the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham on 28 April 2011 and a priest on 15 June 2011. His webpage is http://www.allenbrent.co.uk.
WWalter Holden Capps was an American academic and politician. He served as a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives, representing California's 22nd congressional district from January 1997 until his death nine months later.
WThe Rev. Edmond La Beaume Cherbonnier was an American scholar in the field of religious studies. He served as Professor of Religion at Trinity College, Connecticut, and as a deacon in the Episcopal Church. He is known for his work on Christianity, analyzing idolatry and distinctions between mystical and biblical thought, his efforts on developing and advancing religious studies, and for founding the Religion Department at Trinity College in 1955.
WMark S. Cladis is an author and the Brooke Russell Astor Professor of the Humanities at Brown University. He is also Chair of the Department of Religious Studies. His teaching and scholarship are located at the various intersections of religious studies, philosophy, and environmental humanities. He has published five books, including his soon to be released trade-book and memoir, In Search of a Course. His current book project is Radical Romanticism, Democracy, and the Environmental Imagination. He has also published over sixty articles, essays, and chapters in edited books.
WDaniel Clasen, in Latin Danielis Clasenius or Clasenus, was a German political theorist, religious scholar, and classicist.
WMary Shawn Copeland is a retired American womanist and Black Catholic theologian. She is also a former Felician and Dominican sister.
WFrank Moore Cross Jr. (1921–2012) was the Hancock Professor of Hebrew and Other Oriental Languages Emeritus at Harvard University, notable for his work in the interpretation of the Dead Sea Scrolls, his 1973 magnum opus Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, and his work in Northwest Semitic epigraphy. Many of his essays on the latter topic have since been collected in Leaves from an Epigrapher's Notebook.
WMircea Eliade was a Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer, philosopher, and professor at the University of Chicago. He was a leading interpreter of religious experience, who established paradigms in religious studies that persist to this day. His theory that hierophanies form the basis of religion, splitting the human experience of reality into sacred and profane space and time, has proved influential. One of his most instrumental contributions to religious studies was his theory of eternal return, which holds that myths and rituals do not simply commemorate hierophanies, but, at least to the minds of the religious, actually participate in them.
WVilhelm Peter Grønbech was a Danish philologist and historian of religion. He was professor of the history of religion at the University of Copenhagen and also had a great influence on Danish intellectual life, especially during and after World War II.
WMoshe Idel is an Israeli historian and philosopher of Jewish mysticism. He is Emeritus Max Cooper Professor in Jewish Thought at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, and a Senior Researcher at the Shalom Hartman Institute.
WDouglas (“Jake”) Jacobsen is a scholar in the field of religious studies whose work encompasses history, theology, and sociology. His early works are analyses of Pentecostalism and American Protestantism. He won the Pneuma Book Award from the Society for Pentecostal Studies in 2004. His current work focuses on world Christianity, including the books The World’s Christians: Who They Are, Where They Are, and How They Got There and Global Gospel: An Introduction to Christianity on Five Continents
WAcademic-historical research into Jewish mysticism is a modern multi-discipline university branch of Jewish studies. It studies the texts and historical contexts of Judaic mysticism using objective historical-critical methods of Religious studies, such as Philology, History of ideas, Social history and Phenomenology. The historical development of Jewish mysticism under study covers the range of phases, forms and expressions, from early Rabbinic Merkabah mysticism, through Medieval Hasidei Ashkenaz and Classical Kabbalah, early-modern Safed Kabbalah and Sabbateanism, to modern Hasidism and 20th century expressions. It is often seen as a parallel field to academic research into rationalist Jewish philosophy, though some scholars contribute in both areas. In Israel both subjects, together with Ethical literature, share the unbrella department of Jewish thought.
WAdam Kotsko is an American theologian, religious scholar, culture critic, and translator, working in the field of political theology. He served as an Assistant Professor of Humanities at Shimer College in Chicago, which was absorbed into North Central College in 2017. He is chiefly known for his interpretative work on philosophers Slavoj Žižek and Giorgio Agamben, as well as his writing on American pop culture. Some of his better-known books include Why We Love Sociopaths (2012), Awkwardness (2010), and Žižek and Theology (2008).
WRichard W. Lariviere is a Sanskrit scholar and academic administrator. He served as the President of the University of Oregon from July 2009 until November 2011. From October 2012 until August 2020 he was the president of the Field Museum in Chicago, Illinois.
WYehuda Liebes is an Israeli academic and scholar. He is the Gershom Scholem Professor Emeritus of Kabbalah at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is considered a leading scholar of Kabbalah; his other research interests include Jewish myth, Sabbateanism, and the links between Judaism and ancient Greek religion, Christianity, and Islam. Author of many books and articles, his work is often cited by other scholars. He is the recipient of the 1997 Bialik Prize, the 1999 Gershom Scholem Prize for Kabbalah Research, the 2006 EMET Prize for Art, Science and Culture, and the 2017 Israel Prize.
WJames Frank McGrath is the Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature at Butler University and is a known for his work on Early Christianity, Mandaean Studies, criticism of the Christ myth theory, and the analysis of religion in science fiction. He received his Ph.D. from Durham University in 1998.
WG. D. Melanchthon (1934–1994) was a Silver Jubilee Priest hailing from Protestant Andhra Evangelical Lutheran Church Society who taught Religions, at United Theological College, Bangalore from 1968 till the latter half of eighties until his career was brought to an abrupt end in 1988 on being stricken with paralysis. Melanchthon used to be quite active among the academic community along with Chrysostom Arangaden, Arvind P. Nirmal and others in not only delivering scholarly talks, but also in contributing research articles and reviewing new titles.
WBirgit Meyer is a German professor of religious studies at Utrecht University.
WFriedrich Max Müller was a German-born philologist and Orientalist, who lived and studied in Britain for most of his life. He was one of the founders of the western academic disciplines of Indian studies and religious studies. Müller wrote both scholarly and popular works on the subject of Indology. The Sacred Books of the East, a 50-volume set of English translations, was prepared under his direction. He also promoted the idea of a Turanian family of languages.
WRaimon Panikkar Alemany, also known as Raimundo Panikkar and Raymond Panikkar, was a Spanish Roman Catholic priest and a proponent of Interfaith dialogue. As a scholar, he specialized in comparative religion.
WDr. Ataullah Siddiqui was a Muslim scholar and academic who did much to promote interfaith relations.
WRoderick Ninian Smart was a Scottish writer and university educator. He was a pioneer in the field of secular religious studies. In 1967 he established the first department of religious studies in the United Kingdom at the new University of Lancaster where he was also Pro-Vice-Chancellor, having already chaired one of the largest and most prestigious departments of theology in Britain at the University of Birmingham. In 1976, he became the first J.F. Rowny Professor in the Comparative Study of Religions at University of California, Santa Barbara. Smart presented the Gifford Lectures in 1979–80. In 1996, he was named the Academic Senate's Research Professor, the highest professorial rank at UC Santa Barbara. In 2000, he was elected President of the American Academy of Religion, while simultaneously retaining his status as President of the Inter Religious Federation for World Peace. Smart held both titles at the time of his death.
WHuston Cummings Smith was a leading scholar of religious studies in the United States. He was widely regarded as one of the world's most influential figures in religious studies. He authored at least thirteen books on world's religions and philosophy, and his book The World's Religions sold over three million copies as of 2017 and remains a popular introduction to comparative religion.
WFrancesca Stavrakopoulou is a British biblical scholar and broadcaster. She is currently Professor of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Religion at the University of Exeter. The main focus of her research is on the Hebrew Bible, and on Israelite and Judahite history and religion.
WRaphael Judah (R.J.) Zwi Werblowsky was an Israeli scholar of religion specializing in comparative religion and interfaith dialogue. Werblowsky served as Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem between 1965—1969, Secretary-General and later Vice-President of the International Association for the History of Religions, Vice-President of the International Council for Philosophy and the Humanities of UNESCO and the chief editor of the journal Numen. He also co-edited The Encyclopedia of the Jewish Religion. In 2005 R.J. Zvi Werblowsky became a recipient of The EMET Prize for Art, Science and Culture, and in 2009 he was awarded Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon by the government of Japan.