Yii-Jan Lin is a historian of ideas and biblical texts. She is the author of Immigration and Apocalypse: How the Book of Revelation Shaped American Immigration (Yale 2024) and The Erotic Life of Manuscripts: New Testament Textual Criticism and the Biological Sciences (Oxford 2016).

She is Associate Professor of New Testament at Yale Divinity School, where she teaches the critical study of ancient texts and their interpretation, especially in relation to race and gender. She has made numerous appearances on radio, podcasts, and documentaries to comment on race, immigration, apocalypse, and gender.

Born in the San Francisco Bay Area to first generation immigrants, Lin studied English Literature, earning her bachelor’s degree from Pomona College and master’s degree from the University of Chicago. Shifting her focus to ancient and biblical texts, she graduated with her PhD in religious studies from Yale University. She has lived in Taipei, Taiwan; Heidelberg, Germany; Exeter, England; and Beijing, China. As faculty at Yale, she is currently based in New Haven, Connecticut.

Link for faculty page at Yale Divinity School

Link for CV