Jim Melnick's primary research interests relate to the Jewish roots of early Christianity and, most recently, on the significance of the Syriac Didascalia Apostolorum. Most of his career has been focused on Christian ministry, as well as in past service as a U.S. government analyst in the Soviet/Russian field during the Cold War, with expertise on Marxism and the ideology of Soviet atheism during the Communist period. He also holds a master's degree in Russian area studies from Harvard. Another area of interest is the integration of Unicode and related technologies to the presentation of ancient languages online.