Terryl Givens was born in rural upstate New York on April 27, 1957, but spent his childhood in Arizona and then Virginia. He served as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in São Paulo, Brazil. He received his bachelor’s degree in comparative literature from Brigham Young University in 1980 and his PhD in comparative literature from the University of North Carolina in 1988. He accepted a position to teach English literature at the University of Richmond in the same year, and has lived near Richmond with his family since then.

Givens's early work focused on literary studies and specifically romanticism. His dissertation and early publications were on the classical theory of mimesis and its dissolution in the 19th century. He also published with Putnam a well-regarded children’s book, Dragon Scales and Willow Leaves.

Givens published his first book - The Viper on the Hearth - in 1997 and with it shifted his research emphasis to the intersection of literary and religious studies. Using his background in literary criticism to survey anti-Mormon literature from the 19th century to the present, Givens explores the challenge anti-Mormons were presented with in seeking to justify persecutions of a religious sect in a supposedly religiously tolerant nation. His second book, By the Hand of Mormon, is seen as his most important contribution to Mormon studies to date because it is the first academic survey of the significance of the Book of Mormon to believer and skeptic alike to be published by a major academic press (Oxford University Press). In it, Givens argues that the Book of Mormon has been important primarily for its existence and extra-textual historical claims rather than for its contents. Givens also makes a case for what he calls “dialogic revelation” as a novel contribution of the Book of Mormon. In current projects, he seems to be moving in the direction of broader engagement with religious themes across time and the western religious and philosophical traditions.

General critical response to Givens work has been favorable from fellow scholars like Jan Shipps, Richard Bushman, and Harold Bloom. The New York Times referred to his work as “provocative” and Harper’s praised him for being “fair-minded and unbiased.” Some critics, however, have faulted him for what they see as an apologetic bent. Givens is a practicing Mormon who served as bishop in a local congregation for some years.