Unless you know how words work, you can't understand one word of the Bible.

Jim's background had been in banking and finance.  He understood how money works, but had never thought about how words worked.  Jim had already enrolled in a Bible College in Dallas and soon after the above experience began attending classes.  However, the above words, which he considered to be a divine revelation, never left his mind.  When he learned that his Bible was a translation made from ancient Greek and Hebrew manuscripts, he immediately enrolled in classes in those languages from the Moody Bible Institute. 

Jim completed the two-year Bible College curriculum in one-year and was ordained as a pastor by the religious group that operated the college, a non-denominational Charismatic organization.  Jim returned to his hometown of Cleburne, Texas and founded the Believer's Word Center, which he would pastor until 1996.  By the time he began teaching at the church, there was a distinct theme to each lesson: "What did the words of the Bible mean to the original ancient authors?"

In 1984 he received a letter that contained an advertisement for a book -- Understanding the Difficult Words of Jesus by David Bivin & Roy Blizzard.  Later, he would raise the money to publish the second edition and later arrange for a third printing of the book.  He ordered it and was amazed at how it related to his earlier revelation.  The new understanding that Jesus was a Jew; and that his words and life had to be viewed within a Jewish cultural context transformed the way he understood the words of the New Testament.  

After reading the above book, Jim camped out in the library of a local university for over three months.  He would be there when the doors opened and stay until it closed.  He spent a tremendous amount of time studying linguistics and the Second Temple Period of ancient Israel.  An important resource was the Encyclopedia Judaica, which he later ordered for his office.  During this period he formulated his Law of Language, which became an important tool for Bible Study:

A word is a symbol or sound with an attached bundle of associations.
Those associations are the product of the Source's (writer or speaker) culture, 
historical time period, geographical location and personal experience.

Jim has written a number of Bible Study courses which are based on this law.  It quickly became apparent to Jim that many of the foundational doctrines he had been taught at the Bible College would not have been understood or supported by the people that wrote the verses that those doctrines were supposed to have been based on.  As you can probably imagine, this created a difficult situation since he was still a pastor.  It became very evident that many church members didn't appreciate having a pastor that told them that some of the things he had been teaching was wrong.

In 1988, Jim established the Center for Biblical Analysis (CBA), as part of the church, in order to focus more upon the linguistic aspects of his research.  Several years before, Jim had began taking classes related to linguistics and biblical languages at the University of Texas at Arlington.  His Greek professor, Dr. Ike Tennison, was interested in his work and became very involved.  Ike would also become one of Jim's best friends. Jim also met Sid Dosh from Ocala, Florida, who became very involved in the work.  Jim, Ike and Sid became the three principle researchers in the CBA project, and over time, a number of other scholars also contributed to its work. Jim formulated a guideline that has been the primary guide of all of his work:

Our beliefs must be large enough to include all of the facts;
open enough to be tested; and,
flexible enough to change when error is discovered or new facts are found.

You can probably imagine how this affected his pulpit ministry!  It was becoming clear that as time passed he had an increasing number of questions and a decreasing supply of answers.  He simply was unable to preach messages based on beliefs that he could no longer support.  This created a real personal challenge for Jim, because he cared very much about the members of the church and wanted to help meet their needs.  

In this period Jim enrolled in classes at the Jewish Community Center in Dallas, Texas.  He took a number of classes that helped him better understand the Jewish culture, Hebrew language and the Torah.  One of his teachers was Rabbi Jeffrey Leynor, who also became a close friend, mentor and associate.  Jeffrey has played an important role on the journey that resulted in the Biblical Heritage Center.

In late 1990, a few months after his first grandson was born, he was sitting in his study reading a magazine when he turned to a picture of people who had died at Jonestown.  His eyes focused upon the soles of two little tennis shoes that were on the feet of a little child laying between two adults, which he assumed were its parents.  As he looked at the picture, this question came to him:

What is so powerful that it would cause a loving mother to place a glass of poison
to the lips of her baby, look into its eyes, and tell it to drink?

Then the answer came to him --

Her belief system!

As he thought about this he realized that he really hadn't thought about what made up his belief system.  Jim realized that the little child in the picture probably had a grandfather somewhere who cared as much about it as he did about his.  Jim Jones was a Christian and many of his messages must have included many of the same verses as his did.  This was another transformational experience, which led Jim to dig even more deeply into his personal beliefs.  His goal was to discover how he acquired them, how they influenced his decision making process and why he accepted some and rejected others.  The deadly potential consequences of telling people to accept any salvation message on blind faith made it impossible for Jim to continue in the pulpit. He closed the church in 1996, but the Center for Biblical Analysis continued until 1999.  

After long discussions between Jim and Ike, along with important input from Jeffrey, it was decided that an educational organization would be better suited for the mission that we now viewed as our primary goal.  The outcome of those discussions was the Biblical Heritage Center.