Hershel Shanks (March 8, 1930 – February 5, 2021) was an American lawyer and amateur biblical archaeologist who was the founder and long-time editor of the Biblical Archaeology Review.
For more than forty years, he communicated the world of biblical archaeology to general readers through magazines, books, and conferences. Shanks was "probably the world's most influential amateur Biblical archaeologist," according to The New York Times book critic Richard Bernstein.[1]
Shanks was born in Sharon, Pennsylvania, where his father owned a shoe store.[2] He graduated from Haverford College (English), Columbia University (sociology) and Harvard Law School. After over three decades of legal practice, he became interested in archaeology during a year spent in Jerusalem.
In 1974, he founded the Biblical Archaeology Society and in 1975 the Biblical Archaeology Review, which he edited until transitioning to Editor Emeritus in 2018.[3] He has written and edited numerous works on biblical archaeology. He used the pseudonym "Adam Mikaya" for a few articles published in the Biblical Archaeology Review.[4] He also wrote works on the Dead Sea Scrolls.
In a legal case before the Israeli Supreme Court in 1993, Shanks and others were successfully sued by leading Dead Sea Scrolls scholar Elisha Qimron for breach of copyright when Shanks, without permission, published material written by Qimron in A Facsimile Edition of the Dead Sea Scrolls. In 2000, Shanks' appeal of the earlier decision was dismissed.[5]
Shanks was the editor of Moment Magazine for 15 years from 1987.[6]
His television appearances included Who Wrote the Bible? (1996), The Naked Archaeologist (2005), and Mysteries of the Bible.[7]
Shanks died from complications of COVID-19 at his home in Washington, D.C., on February 5, 2021, one month and three days short of his 91st birthday.[8]
