Terryl L. Givens was born in upstate New York, raised in the American southwest, and did graduate work in Intellectual History (Cornell) and Comparative Literature (Ph.D. UNC Chapel Hill, 1988). For many years, he was Professor of Literature and Religion and held the Jabez Bostick Chair of English at the University of Richmond, Virginia. Since 2019 he has been Neal A. Maxwell Research Scholar at BYU’s Maxwell Institute.

In addition to appearances on NPR, CNN, and Frontline’s The Mormons, Dr. Givens has authored several books. These include, among others, The Pearl of Greatest Price (Oxford 2019), Feeding the Flock: The Foundations of Mormon Thought vol. 2 (Oxford 2017); Wrestling the Angel: The Foundations of Mormon Thought vol. 1 (Oxford 2014); When Souls had Wings: Pre-Mortal Life in Western Thought (Oxford 2010); and By the Hand of Mormon: The American Scripture that Launched a New World Religion (Oxford 2003). His biography of Eugene England, The Dilemmas of Discipleship, will be released in 2021 (UNC Press).

With his wife Fiona he has published All Things New: Rethinking Sin, Salvation and Everything in Between (Faith Matters, 2020); The Christ Who Heals (Deseret 2017); The Crucible of Doubt (Deseret 2014), and The God Who Weeps (Deseret, 2012).

Terryl and Fiona make their home in Midway, Utah.