The Jesus Seminar is a group of around 150 people, including scholars, who meet to discuss the historical Jesus. It was founded in 1985 by the late Robert Funk and John Dominic Crossan. They meet and vote with colored beads to decide which sayings of Jesus are authentic and which are not. They seek to find the “authentic” sayings of Christ.

The group is liberal and denies Jesus’ deity and substitutionary atonement. They also deny the sufficiency of the Bible and consider extra-biblical resources as equally or more valid than New Testament documents.