John J. Collins

John Joseph Collins is an Irish-born American scholar of the Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Judaism, Holmes Professor Emeritus of Old Testament Criticism and Interpretation at Yale Divinity School. His research centers on Jewish apocalyptic literature and the Dead Sea Scrolls. He served as general editor of the Anchor Yale Bible Series from 2008 to 2025, then was succeeded by Candida R. Moss. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2018.

Education

Collins studied at Rockwell College in Cashel, County Tipperary, then entered the Spiritans, spending nine years in the order. He earned a BA in 1967 and an MA in 1969 in Semitics and Classics at University College Dublin. He completed the PhD in Near Eastern Languages and Literatures at Harvard University in 1972.

Career

Collins began teaching at University College Dublin as an assistant lecturer in the early 1970s. He was Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame from 1985 to 1991 and Professor of Hebrew Bible at the University of Chicago Divinity School from 1991 to 2000. He joined Yale Divinity School in 2000 as Holmes Professor of Old Testament Criticism and Interpretation. Yale lists him as Holmes Professor Emeritus of Old Testament Criticism and Interpretation.
His research and teaching focus on apocalyptic literature, wisdom literature, Hellenistic Judaism, and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Editorial leadership includes Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Biblical Literature 1989–1994, Editor-in-Chief of Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 1994–2008, Editor-in-Chief of Dead Sea Discoveries 2003–2008, and General Editor of the Anchor Yale Bible Series beginning in 2008, with the series transition in 2025 to a new general editor.
Professional service includes the presidency of the Society of Biblical Literature in 2002, the presidency of the Catholic Biblical Association of America in 1996–1997, and the presidency of the Chicago Society of Biblical Research in 1995–1996. Honors include an honorary D.Litt. from University College Dublin in 2009 and an honorary doctorate from the University of Zurich in 2015, and the Gutenberg Research Award in 2018 awarded jointly with Adela Yarbro Collins. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2018.
Collins is married to Adela Yarbro Collins, Buckingham Professor Emerita of New Testament Criticism and Interpretation at Yale, with whom he coauthored King and Messiah as Son of God.

Publications

Year	Title	Publisher	Notes
1983	Between Athens and Jerusalem: Jewish Identity in the Hellenistic Diaspora	Crossroad	Original edition on Hellenistic Judaism.
1984	The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to Jewish Apocalyptic Literature	Crossroad	Original edition survey of Jewish apocalyptic texts and contexts.
1993	Daniel: A Commentary on the Book of Daniel	Fortress Press	Standard English commentary on Book of Daniel.
1995	The Scepter and the Star: The Messiahs of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Ancient Literature	Doubleday	Study of messianic expectations in ancient Judaism.
1998	The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to Jewish Apocalyptic Literature, 2nd ed.	Wm. B. Eerdmans	Revised edition survey of Jewish apocalyptic texts and contexts.
2000	Between Athens and Jerusalem: Jewish Identity in the Hellenistic Diaspora	Wm. B. Eerdmans	Revised Eerdmans edition of earlier Crossroad volume, on Hellenistic Judaism.
2004	Introduction to the Hebrew Bible	Fortress Press	Widely used introductory textbook on the Hebrew Bible.
2005	Encounters with Biblical Theology	Fortress Press	Collection of essays on biblical theology.
2008	King and Messiah as Son of God: Divine, Human, and Angelic Messianic Figures in Biblical and Related Literature	Wm. B. Eerdmans	Study of messianic titulature and royal ideology.
2009	Beyond the Qumran Community: The Sectarian Movement of the Dead Sea Scrolls	Wm. B. Eerdmans	Reassessment of the Qumran movement.
2010	The Oxford Handbook of the Dead Sea Scrolls	Oxford University Press	State-of-the-field essays on the Dead Sea Scrolls.
2010	The Eerdmans Dictionary of Early Judaism	Wm. B. Eerdmans	Reference work on Second Temple Judaism.
2010	The Scepter and the Star: The Messiahs of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Ancient Literature, 2nd ed.	Doubleday	Revised edition study of messianic expectations in ancient Judaism.
2012	The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Biography	Princeton University Press	Narrative of discovery and debates, in Lives of Great Religious Books.
2013	Early Judaism: A Comprehensive Overview, 2nd revised ed.	Wm. B. Eerdmans	Comprehensive survey of Second Temple Judaism.
2016	The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to Jewish Apocalyptic Literature, 3rd ed.	Wm. B. Eerdmans	Survey of Jewish apocalyptic texts and contexts.
2017	The Invention of Judaism: Torah and Jewish Identity from Deuteronomy to Paul	University of California Press	Taubman Lectures, on Torah and identity in antiquity.
2018	Introduction to the Hebrew Bible, 3rd ed.	Fortress Press	Widely used introductory textbook on the Hebrew Bible.
2019	What Are Biblical Values? What the Bible Says on Key Ethical Issues	Yale University Press	Analysis of biblical ethics across canonical corpora.
2025	Introduction to the Hebrew Bible, 4th ed.	Fortress Press	Latest edition of widely used introductory textbook on the Hebrew Bible.
2025	A Short Introduction to the Hebrew Bible, 4th ed.	Fortress Press	Condensed version of introductory textbook on the Hebrew Bible.