Jesus Seminar
The Jesus Seminar is a controversial project led by Robert Funk at Westar Institute to discuss the question of what Jesus said and did as a historical person and to judge it by voting using a bead system. Red beads were used to show that Jesus said the passage or something very like the passage. Pink beads were used to show that Jesus might have said something like the passage. Gray beads were used for a passage that Jesus did not say but were Jesus' ideas. Black beads were used for passages that Jesus did not say at all.
The scholars attempt to reconstruct the life of Jesus - who he was, what he did, what he said, and what it meant - using all the evidence and available tools. Their reconstruction is based on the triple pillar of social anthropology, history and textual analysis. They use cross-cultural anthropological studies to set the general background; narrow in on the history and society of first century Judaea; and use textual analysis (along with more anthropology and history) to focus on Jesus himself. They use a balanced combination of primary sources (mostly original texts, but with some archaeological evidence) and secondary sources (the latest in anthropological and historical studies).
Their methodology, which was developed by John Dominic Crossan, involves using first stratum sources (those dateable to 30-70 CE) and only considering events and sayings with multiple independent attestations. They do not make grandiose claims about their methodology or the certainty of the resulting conclusions.
The first findings of the Jesus Seminar were published in 1993 as The Five Gospels : What Did Jesus Really Say? The Search for the Aunthentic Words of Jesus (ISBN 006063040X).
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