The first and best-known project of Westar Institute is the Jesus Seminar. Launched in 1985, the Seminar was organized to discover and report a scholarly consensus on the historical authenticity of the sayings (phase 1) and events (phase 2) attributed to Jesus in the gospels. A third phase of the Jesus Seminar resulted in profiles of Jesus drawn by individual scholars using the the results of the first two phases on the sayings and deeds of Jesus.
In March 2006, the Jesus Seminar began work on a new description of the emergence of the Jesus traditions through the first two centuries of the common era [C.E.]. In this new phase, the Jesus Seminar on Christian Origins, Fellows will develop a new history of early Christianities and Christian writings, employing the methods and techniques pioneered by the original Jesus Seminar on the sayings and deeds of Jesus.
Other Westar Seminars are also at work. The Seminar on the Acts of the Apostles, which began deliberations in 1999, will evaluate and report on the historical authenticity of the Acts in much the same way as the Jesus Seminar reviewed the sayings and events in the gospels.
Westar Seminars convene twice a year at the Westar Institute National Meetings. Deliberations and voting center on working Seminar Papers prepared by scholars and distributed in advance of the meeting.
Voting
Voting developed in the Jesus Seminar as a way to spur decision making and to ascertain whether a scholarly consensus exists on a given point. In the case of the Jesus Seminar's deliberations on the words of Jesus, for example, it was deemed entirely consonant with the mission of the Seminar to decide whether, after careful review of the evidence, a particular saying or parable did or did not fairly represent the voice of the historical Jesus. The color-coded voting ranges from red (likely authentic) and pink (somewhat likely) to gray (somewhat unlikely) and black (unlikely).
In keeping with the principle of public accountability, the results of the deliberations of the Jesus Seminar have been reported in a number of books, including the comprehensive reports The Five Gospels: The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus (1993) and The Acts of Jesus: The Search for the Authentic Deeds (1998). The voting results from the Special Fall 1999 Once & Future Jesus Conference are available on this site.
More about voting
Scholars Version Translation
The first step in the work of the Jesus Seminar was to inventory and classify all the words attributed to Jesus in the first three centuries of the common era. This led in turn to a Westar project as innovative as the Jesus Seminar itself: the ongoing Scholars Version translation.
The Scholars Version (SV) is a fresh translation of the gospels and other early Christian texts from the original languages. Unlike other major translations into English, the Scholars Version is being created free of ecclesiastical and religious control. The language is meant to produce in the reader an experience comparable to that of the first readers—or listeners—of the original.
The Scholars Version of the gospels is the basic English translation found in all Jesus Seminar reports, including the comprehensive reports The Five Gospels and The Acts of Jesus. The complete set of SV translations of all known gospels and gospel fragments through 300 C.E. are found in the The Complete Gospels.
The Scholars Version translation panel has turned its attention to other texts including the letters of Paul, the Acts of the Apostles, and a variety of non-canonical texts.
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