Eric J. Sharpe

In 1985 he had published a bicentennial survey of all major English-language translations of the Indian sacred text the Bhagavad-Gītā. In this work he demonstrated how romantic interpretations of the Gita developed in the western world, and charted how Christian missionaries to India often misunderstood the text.

He guest lectured at Harvard University and at the University of Uppsala, Sweden, where from 1978 to 1981 he held the chair as full Professor of History of Religion. He held visiting appointments at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois; and at two Canadian universities, MacMaster in Hamilton, Ontario and the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg. In 1991 he was Senior Mission Scholar in Residence, Overseas Ministries Study Center, New Haven, Connecticut.

Sharpe was for many years an influential figure in the International Association for the History of Religions, hosting its international congresses in Lancaster 1975 and Sydney 1985. He was honoured with a life membership of the IAHR in 1995. He was President of The Australian Association for the Study of Religions and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.

Sharpe was born in a working-class family in Lancaster, England. Aged 11, he won a scholarship as a non-boarding student at the Royal Lancaster Grammar School. His favourite sports were rowing and long-distance cycling. It was in his late teens, through a school friend, that he was brought into contact with Christianity at a local Methodist church. After doing National Service in the British Education Corps – this was at the time of the Korean War – he presented himself as a student at the Hartley Victoria College in Manchester, as a candidate for the Methodist ministry. Later, however, he chose the path of scholarship and so was not ordained. At the University of Manchester he achieved a B.A. (Theol.) and an M.A. degree in the History of Religions, studying under Professor S. G. F. Brandon. In 1958 he went to Sweden, where seven years later he received his doctorate in theology (Teol. Dr) in Church History with Missiology from the University of Uppsala, Sweden. He married Birgitta Johannesson in 1962. After a one-year visiting appointment at a liberal arts college in Indiana, USA, he joined Prof. Brandon at the University of Manchester, England, in 1966 and then Prof. Ninian Smart at the University of Lancaster in 1970. He collaborated with Ninian Smart in promoting religious studies as a subject in British schools. He also spent time in field and archival research in India, and in 1977 became the inaugural Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Sydney (1977–1996).

Eric John Sharpe (19 September 1933 – 19 October 2000) was the founding Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Sydney, Australia. He was a major scholar in the phenomenology of religion, the history of modern Christian mission, and inter-religious dialogue.