Adela Yarbro Collins is the Buckingham Professor of New Testament Criticism and Interpretation at the Yale University Divinity School. She was Professor of New Testament in the faculty of the University of Chicago Divinity School from 1991 to 2000; Professor in the Department of Theology at the University of Notre Dame from 1985 to 1991; and a member of the faculty of McCormick Theological Seminary from 1973 to 1985. She holds the Ph.D. from Harvard University in New Testament and Christian Origins and was awarded an honorary doctorate in Theology by the University of Oslo, Norway, in 1994. Professor Collins was awarded a Fellowship for University Teachers by the National Endowment for the Humanities for 1995-96. In addition to her first book, The Combat Myth in the Book of Revelation, she has published Cosmology and Eschatology in Jewish and Christian Apocalypticism; The Beginning of the Gospel: Probings of Mark in Context, Crisis and Catharsis: The Power of the Apocalypse, and The Apocalypse (New Testament Message series). Her current research project is a commentary on the Gospel according to Mark for the Hermeneia commentary series.

Professor Collins is serving as a member of the Committee of the Society of New Testament Studies and as the delegate of the Society of Biblical Literature to the American Council of Learned Societies. She was the Editor of the Society of Biblical Literature's Monograph Series from 1985-1990. She has also served on the editorial boards of The Journal of Biblical Literature, The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, New Testament Studies, The Journal for the Study of the New Testament, The Journal of Religion, and Biblical Interpretation.