Weston W. Fields

Dr. Weston W. Fields grew up in Kodiak, Alaska. After earning his BA from Faith Baptist Bible College, he went on to earn an M.Div and a Th.D. From Grace College and Theological Seminary, in Winona Lake Indiana. Dr. Fields taught at Grace College and Theological Seminary for ten years before moving to Jerusalem Israel to work on a Ph.D. in Old Testament and Semitic Languages at the Hebrew University. Dr. Fields also taught at the Institute of Holy Land Studies (now called Jerusalem University College) for seven years. All during this period, and up to the present day, Dr. Fields divides his time between scholarship and commercial fishing in Alaska. During the summers, Dr. Fields runs a family business in Kodiak, fishing commercially for salmon. Starting in 1991 Dr. Fields started working as the Executive Director of the Dead Sea Scrolls Foundation, during a period which saw the completion of the series from Oxford University Press publishing the Dead Sea Scrolls, called "Discoveries in the Judaean Desert". This encyclopedic series is now complete with 32 volumes. Dr. Fields current work includes writing the Full History of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Published by Brill). Since 1999 he has traveled extensively in the Middle East, Europe and the United States in order to interview everyone from the first generation of scholars then alive, including those who discovered scrolls in the 1950's or were the first to examine and reconstruct them. As a result of these personal meetings he has amassed a large and diverse collection of personal letters, papers, and archives related to the first scrolls scholars, especially the famous Qumran Cave 4 Team.