American historians of religion

Earl Irvin West (May 18, 1920, Carmel, Indiana – February 4, 2011, Memphis, Tennessee) was a historian of the Restoration Movement. He was known for his multivolume work Search for the Ancient Order, published incrementally from 1949 to 1993. He was baptized by Hugo McCord in 1935. A graduate of Butler University, he received his Ph.D in American History at Indiana University. Although he lived in Indianapolis, Indiana, and was the minister for two different congregations, he also served for many years as professor of church history at Harding Graduate School of Religion in Memphis, Tennessee, now Harding School of Theology, commuting once a week to Memphis. West founded Religious Book Service.

Elaine Pagels, née Hiesey (born February 13, 1943), is an American historian of religion. She is the Harrington Spear Paine Professor of Religion at Princeton University. Pagels has conducted extensive research into early Christianity and Gnosticism.
Her best-selling book The Gnostic Gospels (1979) examines the divisions in the early Christian church, and the way that women have been viewed throughout Jewish history and Christian history. Modern Library named it as one of the 100 best books of the twentieth century.