Alison Schofield is truly living her childhood dream. An associate professor of religious and Judaic studies, she works with some of the most intriguing ancient manuscripts in Judaism and Christianity.
“I was always a fan of Indiana Jones, and I was always interested in the Middle East,” Schofield says. “I’ve been interested in the Dead Sea Scrolls for as long as I can remember.”
That interest has paid off. Today, she is part of a three-editor team working to create a new translation of the famous scrolls. “My field tends to be male-dominated,” Schofield says. “For the first time in history a woman has been selected to one of the highest roles of editing, and also being an American, because generally it has been European scholars.”
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Schofield joins Daniel Falk of Penn State University and retired professor Martin Abegg Jr. of Trinity Western University in piecing together the fragments, creating a translation and providing textual notes and commentary to help readers make sense of all the different copies of the scrolls.
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