Hershel Shanks (March 8, 1930 – February 5, 2021) was an American lawyer and amateur biblical archaeologist. He was the founder and long-time editor of the ''

Biblical Archaeology Review ''Biblical Archaeology Review'' is a magazine appearing every three months and sometimes referred to as ''BAR'' that seeks to connect the academic study of archaeology to a broad general audience seeking to understand the world of the Bible, the ...

''.

Life and career

Shanks was born in

Sharon, Pennsylvania Sharon is a city in western Mercer County, Pennsylvania, United States. The city, located along the banks of the Shenango River on the state border with Ohio, is about northeast of Youngstown, about southeast of Cleveland and about northwe ...

, where his father owned a shoe store. He graduated from

Haverford College Haverford College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Haverford, Pennsylvania. It was founded as a men's college in 1833 by members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), began accepting non-Quakers in 1849, and became coeducationa ...

(English),

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

(sociology) and

Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (Harvard Law or HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States. Each c ...

. 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 The Biblical Archaeology Society was established in 1974 by American lawyer Hershel Shanks, as a non-sectarian organisation that supports and promotes biblical archaeology. Its current publications include the ''Biblical Archaeology Review'', whil ...

and in 1975 the ''

'', which he edited until transitioning to Editor Emeritus in 2018. He has written and edited numerous works on

biblical archaeology Biblical archaeology is an academic school and a subset of Biblical studies and Levantine archaeology. Biblical archaeology studies archaeological sites from the Ancient Near East and especially the Holy Land (also known as Palestine, Land o ...

. He used the pseudonym "Adam Mikaya" for a few articles published in the ''Biblical Archaeology Review''. He also wrote works on the

Dead Sea Scrolls The Dead Sea Scrolls (also the Qumran Caves Scrolls) are ancient Jewish and Hebrew religious manuscripts discovered between 1946 and 1956 at the Qumran Caves in what was then Mandatory Palestine, near Ein Feshkha in the West Bank, on the ...

. For more than forty years, Shanks communicated the world of biblical archaeology to general readers by magazines, books, and conferences. Shanks was "probably the world's most influential amateur Biblical archaeologist," according to ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' book critic Richard Bernstein. In a legal case before the

Israeli Supreme Court ar, المحكمة العليا , image = Emblem of Israel dark blue full.svg , imagesize = 100px , caption = Emblem of Israel , motto = , established = , location = Givat Ram, Jerusalem , coordina ...

in 1993, Shanks and others were successfully sued by leading

scholar

Elisha Qimron Elisha Qimron (born 5 February 1943) is an academic who studies ancient Hebrew. He took his Doctor of Philosophy in 1976 at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem with the dissertation ''The Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls''. Currently, he is a profes ...

for breach of

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educatio ...

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. Shanks was the editor of '' Moment Magazine'' for 15 years from 1987. His television appearances included ''Who Wrote the Bible?'' (1996), ''

The Naked Archaeologist ''The Naked Archaeologist'' is a television series on VisionTV in Canada and History International in the US, that was produced and hosted by the Emmy Award–winning journalist Simcha Jacobovici together with Avri Gilad. The show examines biblic ...

'' (2005), and ''

Mysteries of the Bible ''Mysteries of the Bible'' is an hour-long television series that was originally broadcast by A&E from March 25, 1994 until June 13, 1998 and A&E aired reruns of it until 2002. The series was about biblical mysteries and was produced by FilmRo ...

''.imdb.com
Shanks on the

Internet Movie Database IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, ...

Shanks died from complications of

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quick ...

at his home in Washington, D.C., on February 5, 2021, one month and three days short of his 91st birthday.

Works

Books

* * * * * *

Edited by

* * * Hershel Shanks, editor, ''Early Israel'', Biblical Archaeology Society 1990, * Hershel Shanks, editor, ''Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism: A Parallel History of Their Origins and Early Development'', Biblical Archaeology Society 1992, * Hershel Shanks, editor, ''Understanding the Dead Sea Scrolls: A Reader From the Biblical Archaeology Review'',

Vintage Press Vintage Books is a trade paperback publishing imprint of Penguin Random House originally established by Alfred A. Knopf in 1954. The company was purchased by Random House in April 1960, and a British division was set up in 1990. After Random Hou ...

reprint 1993, * Hershel Shanks and Suzanne F. Singer, editors, ''Cancel My Subscription: The Best of Queries and Comments from Letters to Biblical Archaeology Review'', Biblical Archaeology Society 1995, * Hershel Shanks, editor, ''Abraham & Family: New Insights into the Patriarchal Narratives'', Biblical Archaeology Society 2000, * Hershel Shanks, editor, ''City of David: Revisiting Early Excavations'', English translations of Reports by Raymond Weill and Louis-Hugues Vincent, Notes and Comments by Ronny Reich, Biblical Archaeology Society 2004,

Memoir

References

External links

Biblical Archaeology Review

Biblical Archaeology Society
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shanks, Hershel 1930 births 2021 deaths 20th-century American writers 20th-century American archaeologists 21st-century American archaeologists American magazine editors Archaeology of Israel Biblical archaeologists Dead Sea Scrolls Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in Washington, D.C. People from Sharon, Pennsylvania Journalists from Pennsylvania Writers from Pennsylvania Academics from Pennsylvania Haverford College alumni Columbia University alumni Harvard Law School alumni