Georg Johan Sverdrup


Georg Johan Sverdrup was a professor of the history of religion.

Life and family

Sverdrup was born in Stockholm; he was the son of the bishop and politician Jakob Sverdrup and the brother of the Germanic philology professor Jakob Sverdrup and the zoologist Aslaug Sverdrup Sømme. He was the father of the historian Jakob Sverdrup, who directed the Norwegian Nobel Institute, and the mathematician Erling Sverdrup. He was the nephew of the theologian Georg Sverdrup.
After graduation, he worked as an instructor and school principal in Molde and at the Tanks Upper Secondary School in Bergen. After the Second World War, he received a professorship in religious studies at the University of Oslo as the successor to Wilhelm Schencke.