George S. Tate was born September 7, 1944, in Santa Monica, California. He grew up in Dayton, Ohio, Salt Lake City and Provo Utah. He graduated from Provo High School in 1962. He served as a full-time proselyting missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in West Germany from February 1964 to August 1966.

He graduated from Brigham Young University with his Bachelor of Arts in English and German in 1969 and his masters in comparative literature in 1970. He graduated with his PhD in medieval studies from Cornell University in 1974. While at Cornell University he taught English from 1973 to 1974. He worked as a faculty member at Brigham Young University from 1974 to the present. He served as chair of Humanities, Classics, and Comparative Literature from 1981 to 1985, the associate dean of General Education & Honors from 1986 to 1990, and as dean of Undergraduate Education from 2000 to 2005.

At Brigham Young University he taught courses of Comparative Literature, Honors Literature and Scandinavian literature. He has published on multiple topics including Scandinavian literature and critique, Latter-day Saints doctrine and history, and literary development and evolution of the Classical works. He is a member of Medieval Academy of America and the Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Studies, and has received multiple awards including the Karl G. Maeser Excellence in Teaching Award 2008-2009.

He married Julie Ann Walton on July 19, 1969, and had two children. Following Julie's death on July 11, 1987, George married Karen Elaine Harris Bradshaw on December 30, 1988.

The Department of Classical, Biblical and Middle-Eastern Languages was established in 1972 at Brigham Young University in the College of Humanities, reorganizing the earlier Department of Classical and Asian Languages. The department provided instruction in classical civilization and Middle Eastern and Classical languages. The department offered BA degrees in Greek and Latin, and an MA in Latin. Department chairs included J. Reuben Clark III (1972-1975) and R. Douglas Phillips (1975-1976). In 1978, the department was separated into the Department of Humanities, Classics, and Comparative Literature and Department of Linguistics and Special Languages.

The Department of Humanities, Classics, and Comparative Literature is an academic department in the College of Humanities at Brigham Young University. The department was formed in 1978 in a merger of the earlier Department of Humanities and Comparative Literature, and the Department of Classical, Biblical, and Middle Eastern Languages. The department provides instruction in interdisciplinary humanities, Classics, Greek, Latin, comparative literature, and Scandinavian studies.