Dr. Douglas “Doug” R. Edwards was professor of New Testament and archaeology at the University of Puget Sound, in Tacoma, Washington. Edwards also led Puget Sound students on archaeological expeditions in Israel, Ukraine, and Greece. Born in Hardy, Nebraska, he earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Nebraska and a Ph.D. in New Testament and Christian Origins from Boston University, where he met his wife, Mary Lynn. Edwards took a position at Puget Sound in 1987, where he taught classes in New Testament, Hebrew Bible, ancient Near Eastern religions, and archaeology.

Edwards first excavated at Sepphoris, Israel in 1986 where he was an area supervisor. He continued at Sepphoris for another six years before helping to excavate roof tiles with the stamp of the 6th legion Ferrata at Kefar Hananya. He led his first excavation as a co-director at Yodefat (Jotapata) in 1992. Between 1994 and 1998, he co-directed excavations at ancient Chersonesos (modern Sebastopol) in Ukraine. The Black Sea Project concentrated on a fifth or sixth century basilica that had been excavated previously from the 1930s to the 1960s. The excavations sought to understand the transformation of the area in the Late Hellenistic or Early Roman period. In 1998, Edwards initiated excavations at Khirbet Qana (also known as Kana, or Cana of the Galilee) in the Beit Netofa Valley in Israel. Edwards’ aim was to compare the archaeological findings from urban sites in the Roman and Byzantine periods with findings from rural village sites such as Khirbet Qana. Based on previous surveys, there was a great deal of evidence that the village had been occupied from the Neolithic through the Ottoman periods. The most significant occupations appear to have occurred in the Early Roman and Late Byzantine periods. Khirbet Qana is possibly the Galilean village memorialized by the writer of the Gospel of John as the site at which Jesus turns water to wine at a wedding feast (John 2:1-11). The discovery of a Crusader-era “veneration cave” shows that medieval Christians considered Khirbet Qana to be a sacred place. Due to safety concerns about taking students to Israel (during the Second Intifada), Edwards began taking students to archaeological expeditions in Greece where he acted as GPS/GIS consultant. These included the Iklaina project in Pylos, Stymphalos in Peloponnesos, Kenchreai, SHARP (Korphos) in Corinth, and Sikyon Projects. Edwards was an early adopter of GPS (Global Positioning Systems) / GIS (Geographic Information System) in archeological excavations and employed these techniques in Israel, Greece, and Ukraine. GPS/GIS is used in archeology to collect data points, such as artifact and square locations, for later transfer to a database for analysis and processing. A donation of GPS equipment from the Trimble Foundation allowed Edwards to use GPS/GIS in his archeological projects. In 2008, unable to make the trip to Israel, he directed the excavations at Khirbet Qana via teleconference. Edwards died on November 22, 2008, after an eight-year battle with multiple myeloma. He was 58 years old.