The retrieval of sea ice thickness using L-band passive remote sensing requires robust models for emission from sea ice. In this work, measurements obtained from surface-based radiometers during the MOSAiC expedition are assessed with the Burke, Wilheit and SMRT radiative transfer models. These models encompass distinct methodologies: radiative transfer with/without wave coherence effects, and with/without scattering. Before running these emission models, the sea ice growth is simulated using the Cumulative Freezing Degree Days (CFDD) model to further compute the evolution of the ice structure during each period. Ice coring profiles done near the instruments are used to obtain the initial state of the computation, along with Digital Thermistor Chain (DTC) data to derive the sea ice temperature during the analyzed periods. The results suggest that the coherent approach used in the Wilheit model results in a better agreement with the horizontal polarization of the in situ measured brightness temperature. The Burke and SMRT incoherent models offer a more robust fit for the vertical component. These models are almost equivalent since the scattering considered in SMRT can be safely neglected at this low frequency, but the Burke model misses an important contribution from the snow layer above sea ice. The results also suggest that a more realistic permittivity falls between the spheres and random needles formulations, with potential for refinement, particularly for L-band applications, through future field measurements.

While it is easy to interpret the first and second of the Matthean Antitheses (5.21–30) as intensifications of the Mosaic law, it is difficult to interpret the remaining Antitheses (5.31–48) in this manner. In the history of interpretation, two main strategies have been adopted for dealing with these later Antitheses, the ‘rejected interpretation’ hypothesis and the revocation hypothesis. The ‘rejected interpretation’ hypothesis, however, is only plausible for the last Antithesis (5.43–8), which appends ‘and hate your enemy’ to the Levitical exhortation to love one's neighbour; in all other instances, the ‘thesis’ statement is either a biblical citation or a close paraphrase of one or more biblical passages. Although the revocation hypothesis has often been deployed in an anti-Jewish way, there is nothing intrinsically anti-Jewish about it; indeed, both biblical authors, such as the Deuteronomist and Ezekiel, on the one hand, and some rabbis, on the other, explicitly revise prior biblical laws while at the same time claiming to be changing nothing. Matthew does something similar when he introduces the revisionist Antitheses with a programmatic statement about the unchangeableness of the Law (5.17–20). The Matthean Jesus, then, is not ‘seconding Sinai’ but correcting it.

The second half of the Akhmîm fragment of the Gospel of Peter distinguishes the recalcitrant Jewish leaders, who suppress the truth of Jesus’ resurrection, from the Jewish people, who regret their murder of Jesus the moment he dies – a distinction best explained by the thesis that the document was produced by and for Jewish Christians living in second-century Syria. Other Christian documents related to the Gospel of Peter and written or influenced by second- and third-century Jewish Christians, especially the Didascalia Apostolorum, show a similar combination of philo- and anti-Judaism. The Gospel's reference to the disciples fasting during the interim between Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection may refer to the practice, attested in the Didascalia and elsewhere, of liturgical fasting for the Jews. Apocalypse of Peter 2, which was probably an original part of the Gospel, holds out hope for Israel's restoration. As the Akhmîm scribe excised this hopeful chapter from the Apocalypse, so he probably excised the hopeful ending of the Gospel, in which the risen Jesus commissioned the disciples to continue the work of separating the people from their recalcitrant leaders and thereby converting them to faith in the one they had crucified.

Dale Allison is right to assert that ‘the twelve tribes in the Diaspora’ invokes Jewish ideas about the Ten Lost Tribes, but wrong to disassociate this thesis from the scholarly consensus that the pseudepigraphal author sees the church as Israel. For James, rather, the restored Israel consists of members of the Two Tribes of Judah and Benjamin (= Jewish Christians) plus members of the Ten Tribes. The latter, rather than being far away in some mythical, inaccessible realm, have been living since the Assyrian invasion in known Diaspora realms, where they lost their Israelite identity until it was reawakened by their recent encounter with the Gospel. Gentiles who respond positively to the Christian message, then, are for James the Ten Lost Tribes.

Although Jesus' Last Supper probably took place on the night before Passover (as in John) rather than on the first night of Passover itself (as in the Synoptics), it contained elements strongly marked by the Jewish institution of the Passover seder (fixed order of service) and haggadah (ritual retelling of the exodus events). These elements were not, as some scholars of Judaism have recently argued, post-70 CE developments. Rather, evidence from Jubilees, Philo, and the NT itself indicates that seder and haggadah already existed in some form in the pre-70 period.

J. Louis Martyn and others have argued that a decision by late first-century rabbis to introduce a liturgical curse against heretics (Birkat Ha-Minim) provides the background for early Christian passages about Christians being excluded from and cursed in synagogues. More recent scholars, however, have challenged the assumption that the earliest form of Birkat Ha-Minim referred to Christians and that the rabbis controlled the synagogues. The present article defends the basics of Martyn's reconstruction while nuancing the extent of rabbinic control in the early Christian centuries. It also suggests, however, that the original of Birkat Ha-Minim may have been a Qumranian curse on the Romans.

The recent history of the modern Chabad (Lubavitcher) movement of Hasidic Judaism provides insight into the development of early Christianity. In both movements successful eschatological prophecies have increased belief in the leader's authority, and there is a mixture of ‘already’ and ‘not yet’ elements. Similar genres of literature are used to spread the good news (e.g. miracle catenae and collections of originally independent sayings). Both leaders tacitly accepted the messianic faith of their followers but were reticent about acclaiming their messiahship directly. The cataclysm of the Messiah's death has led to belief in his continued existence and even resurrection.

Claiming that Mark is a Paulinist does not require that he agree with Paul about everything, and plausible reasons can be advanced for a later Paulinist wanting to write the story of the earthly Jesus. Martin Werner's assertion that the agreements between Mark and Paul reflect general early Christian viewpoints is not valid with regard to the theology of the cross, which was a controversial Pauline emphasis and a stress that the later Gospels attenuated in editing Mark. Contrary to Werner, Mark and Paul agree in ascribing Jesus' death to a combination of human and demonic opponents.

In one of the strangest stories in his strange Gospel, Mark records the two-stage healing of a blind man by Jesus in Bethsaida (8.22–6). Jesus’ first healing action of spitting on the man's eyes and laying hands on them is only partially successful; the man now sees something, but what he sees is people who look like walking trees (8.24). His vision is still unclear, so Jesus must repeat the therapy, this time with more felicitous results: και διεβλεψεν [sc. oτυϕγoς] και απεκατεστη και ενεβλεπεν τηλαυγως απαντα. But how exactly is this clause to be translated?

What really happened at Jesus' baptism? We can be quite sure that Jesus was baptized by John, if only because his baptism caused such problems for the later church, the foremost among them being the clash between the developing idea of Jesus' sinlessness and the historical memory of his participation in John's ‘baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins’ (Mark 1.4). The subordination to John implicit in the baptism, moreover, conflicts with a general tendency in the Gospels to subordinate John to Jesus. The fact of the baptism itself, therefore, is a bedrock historical datum.

In a recently-published article, P. Stuhlmacher has outlined three major contemporary theories of the occasion of Paul's letter to the Romans: 1) Romans is addressed to a specific situation within the Roman community itself, 2) it is composed primarily with Paul's forthcoming delivery of the collection to Jerusalem in mind, and 3) it emerges from a convergence of the first two motivations. While not wishing to deny that the Jerusalem trip was a preoccupation of Paul as he composed Romans (see Romans 15. 25, 30–32), I intend in this study to strengthen the Roman side of the equation, first by surveying a range of arguments about the Roman situation as it relates to the letter, then by suggesting a new approach to the question.