Hershel Shanks

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.

[2] He graduated from Haverford College (English), Columbia University (sociology) and Harvard Law School.

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.

[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.