Hershel Shanks (born March 8, 1930, Sharon, Pennsylvania) is the founder of the Biblical Archaeology Society and the editor of the Biblical Archaeology Review and has written and edited numerous works on Biblical archaeology including the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Shanks communicates the world of biblical archaeology to general readers through his magazines, books, and conferences. Hershel Shanks is "probably the world's most influential amateur Biblical archaeologist," wrote New York Times book critic Richard Bernstein.
In a famous 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 published material written by Qimron in A Facsimile Edition of the Dead Sea Scrolls without Qimron's permission. In 2000 Shanks' appeal against the earlier decision was dismissed.
Shanks' television appearances include Who Wrote the Bible? (1996), The Naked Archaeologist (2005) and 'Mysteries of the Bible.
He used the pseudonym "Adam Mikaya" for a few articles published in the Biblical Archaeology Review.
Read more about Hershel Shanks: Publications