Bruno Bauer was a German philosopher and theologian. As a student of G. W. F. Hegel, Bauer was a radical Rationalist in philosophy, politics and Biblical criticism. Bauer investigated the sources of the New Testament and, beginning with Hegel's analysis of Christianity's Hellenic as well as Jewish roots, concluded that early Christianity owed more to ancient Greek philosophy (Stoicism) than to Judaism.
Ferdinand Christian Baur was a German Protestant theologian and founder and leader of the (new) Tübingen School of theology. Following Hegel's theory of dialectic, Baur argued that second century Christianity represented the synthesis of two opposing theses: Jewish Christianity and Gentile Christianity. This and the rest of Baur's work had a profound impact upon higher criticism of biblical and related texts.
Friedrich Christoph Oetinger was a German Lutheran theologian and theosopher.
Ernst Simon Bloch was a German Marxist philosopher. Bloch was influenced by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Karl Marx, as well as by apocalyptic and religious thinkers such as Thomas Müntzer, Paracelsus, and Jacob Böhme. He established friendships with György Lukács, Bertolt Brecht, Kurt Weill, Walter Benjamin, and Theodor W. Adorno. Bloch's work focuses on an optimistic teleology of the history of mankind.
Walter Burkert was a German scholar of Greek mythology and cult.
Eugen Drewermann is a German church critic, theologian, peace activist and former Catholic priest. His work has been translated into more than a dozen languages.
Peter Schäfer is a prolific German scholar of ancient religious studies, who has made contributions to the field of ancient Judaism and early Christianity through monographs, co-edited volumes, numerous articles, and his trademark synoptic editions. He was a Professor of Religion and the Ronald O. Perelman Professor of Judaic Studies at Princeton University from 1998 to 2013.
Birger A. Pearson is an American scholar and professor studying early Christianity and Gnosticism. He currently holds the positions of Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara and Professor and Interim Director of the Religious Studies Program at the University of California, Berkeley.
Hans-Josef Klauck is a German-born theologian, religious historian, and Franciscan priest. He is Naomi Shenstone Donnelley Professor Emeritus of New Testament and Early Christian Literature at the University of Chicago Divinity School.
Gustav Adolf Deissmann was a German Protestant theologian, best known for his leading work on the Greek language used in the New Testament, which he showed was the koine, or commonly used tongue of the Hellenistic world of that time.
The origins of Judaism lie in Bronze Age polytheistic Canaanite religion. Judaism also syncretized elements of other Semitic religions such as Babylonian religion, which is reflected in the early prophetic books of the Hebrew Bible.
Matthias Wolfes was a German Protestant theologian.
David Friedrich Strauss was a German liberal Protestant theologian and writer, who influenced Christian Europe with his portrayal of the "historical Jesus", whose divine nature he explored via myth. His work was connected to the Tübingen School, which revolutionized study of the New Testament, early Christianity, and ancient religions. Strauss was a pioneer in the historical investigation of Jesus.
Loren T. Stuckenbruck is a historian of early Christianity and Second Temple Judaism, currently professor of New Testament at the University of Munich, in Germany. His work has exerted a significant impact on the field.
Eberhard Jüngel was a German Lutheran theologian. He was Emeritus Professor of Systematic Theology and the Philosophy of Religion at the Faculty of Protestant Theology of the University of Tübingen.
Karl Holl was a professor of theology and church history at Tübingen and Berlin and is considered one of the most influential church historians of his era.
Wilhelm Nestle was a German philologist and philosopher.
Karl Beth (1872–1959) was a German academic involved in the fields of the history of religion, the psychology of religion, and Christianity. He has been described as "one of the founding fathers of the psychology of religion".
Heinrich Scholz was a German logician, philosopher, and Protestant theologian. He was a peer of Alan Turing who mentioned Scholz when writing with regard to the reception of "On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem": "I have had two letters asking for reprints, one from Braithwaite at King's and one from a professor [sic] in Germany... They seemed very much interested in the paper. [...] I was disappointed by its reception here."
"In Praise of Polytheism (On Monomythical and Polymythical Thinking)" (German: Lob des Polytheismus. Über Monomythie und Polymythie) is an essay by the German philosopher Odo Marquard, which was held as a lecture at the Technical University of Berlin in 1978. It was first published in 1979 in an anthology, and was published again in 1981 in Marquard's book Farewell to Matters of Principle (German: Abschied vom Prinzipiellen).
