Strata: 10 Fun Facts About Hershel Shanks

Hershel was born in Sharon, Pennsylvania, a small mill town.
He made his first sale at his father’s shoe store when he was only 11.
He was the first person in his family to go to college.
Hershel studied English at Haverford College, sociology at Columbia University, and law at Harvard Law School. He graduated with honors from all three.
Hershel served at the United States Department of Justice for three years. Then he practiced litigation law for nearly three decades.
As a lawyer, he even argued a case in front of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Several years before founding the Biblical Archaeology Society, Hershel wrote an article for the Jewish Quarterly Review that was titled “Is the Title ‘Rabbi’ Anachronistic in the Gospels?” For this article, he consulted with the legendary archaeologist William Foxwell Albright, who, like Hershel, was of the opinion that the term was not anachronistic.
On his “sabbatical” in Jerusalem in September 1972–1973, Hershel originally planned to write a novel about the Israelite king Saul. However, while there, he became more interested in archaeology and gave up the idea. The unfinished draft of his novel was never read by anyone, and it has since been lost. (Perhaps it will be uncovered one day in an archaeological excavation.)
Hershel has excavated at only one site (Gezer) for a day before he realized that excavation was not for him.
Hershel has been editor of four different magazines: Biblical Archaeology Review (1975–2017), Bible Review (1985–2005), Moment (1987–2004), and Archaeology Odyssey (1998–2006).

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