The Jesus Seminar founding and historical-Jesus controversy
- Date of account
- 1985
- Location
- Berkeley, California, United States
- Source
- model_recalled_reference
- Record updated
- 2026-10-10
Record summary
The Jesus Seminar, founded in 1985 under the Westar Institute, brought scholars together to debate which sayings attributed to Jesus were historically plausible. Although not an apocalyptic journey account, it is a useful North American comparison case for disputes over canonical and apocryphal transmission, authority, and reconstruction of religious history. Its voting procedures and popular presentations attracted substantial criticism from other scholars. Researchers should distinguish the seminar’s published proceedings and voting methods from journalistic summaries and from claims that it represented a consensus of all New Testament scholarship.
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