The academic institution founded by Robert Funk that convened the Jesus Seminar — using collective scholarly voting (colored beads) to assess the historicity of sayings and deeds attributed to Jesus.
The Jesus Seminar (1985–1998): a group of ~200 New Testament scholars voted on each saying and deed attributed to Jesus in canonical and non-canonical texts, using colored beads: red (Jesus almost certainly said this), pink (probably), gray (probably not), black (Jesus certainly did not say this). The result, published as The Five Gospels and The Acts of Jesus, was the most systematic scholarly assessment of historical Jesus material. The methodology was controversial — critics argued voting misrepresents how scholarly consensus works — but the project brought historical Jesus research to mass attention.
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