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]
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 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]
———, ed. (1988). Ancient Israel: A Short History from Abraham to the Roman Destruction of the Temple. Washington, DC: Biblical Archaeology Society.
ISBN9781880317532.
OCLC40395711.
Hershel Shanks, editor, Early Israel, Biblical Archaeology Society 1990,
ISBN0-685-45487-8
Hershel Shanks, editor, Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism: A Parallel History of Their Origins and Early Development, Biblical Archaeology Society 1992,
ISBN1-880317-08-7
Hershel Shanks, editor, Understanding the Dead Sea Scrolls: A Reader From the Biblical Archaeology Review,
Vintage Press reprint 1993,
ISBN0-679-74445-2
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,
ISBN1-880317-44-3
Hershel Shanks, editor, Abraham & Family: New Insights into the Patriarchal Narratives, Biblical Archaeology Society 2000,
ISBN1-880317-57-5