May his memory be a blessing. Here is a selection from an obit from Hebrew Union College:
Dr. Rivkin was the Adolph S. Ochs Professor of Jewish History Emeritus at HUC-JIR/Cincinnati. He was born on September 7, 1918 in Baltimore, MD. He received his BA with honors from Johns Hopkins University in 1941 and his PhD from Johns Hopkins University in 1946. He also attended the Baltimore Hebrew College and was awarded the BHL degree in 1943. In 1962, Dr. Rivkin was awarded a Simon Guggenheim Fellowship to do archival research on the role of the Jews in the development of early Capitalism in European archives. He published five books and wrote more than one hundred articles and reviews on Jewish history and early Christianity. Dr. Rivkin lectured widely in the US and abroad and was especially active in Christian-Jewish dialogue.
Within my more than half a century affiliation with major universities–Harvard, Stanford, the University of California, and the University of Arizona–Dr Ellis Rivkin was the most formidable intellect I ever met. He always sought to penetrate historical phenomena, to seek causes, influences, and motivations beyond an event’s immediate surface. He evinced a highly original capacity for analysis and creative thought. He was a keen listener, ever willing to hear out a student’s ideas. We shall not see his likeness for a very long time–if ever.