KRISTENSEN, W. BREDE (1867–1953), was a Norwegian historian of religions. From 1901 to 1937, he was professor of the history and phenomenology of religion at the University of Leiden. Virtually unknown outside of Scandinavia and the Netherlands during his lifetime, he was the teacher of many of the next generation of Dutch historians of religions and has exerted some influence on methodological discussion through the posthumous publication in English translation of his class lectures at Leiden on the phenomenology of religion (The Meaning of Religion, 1960).

Kristensen was the son of a Lutheran minister, born in Kristiansand, Norway, on June 21, 1867. He went to the University of Kristiania (present-day Oslo) to study theology. After a year, however, he switched to the study of languages, which he later continued in Leiden and Paris. In addition to Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, he studied ancient Egyptian, Assyrian, Sanskrit, and Avestan. He did...