Bond, Helen K. and Larry W. Hurtado, eds. Peter in Early Christianity. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015.

Brown, Raymond E. The Churches the Apostles Left Behind. New York: Paulist Press, 1984.

Dunn, James D. G. Beginning from Jerusalem. Volume 2 of Christianity in the Making. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008.

Dunn, James D. G. Neither Jew nor Greek: A Contested Identity. Volume 3 of Christianity in the Making. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015.

MacDonald, Margaret Y. The Power of Children: The Construction of Christian Families in the Greco-Roman World. Waco: Baylor University Press, 2014.

Schaberg, Jane. The Resurrection of Mary Magdalene: Legends, Apocrypha, and the Christian Testament. New York: Continuum, 2004.

Vermes, Geza. Christian Beginnings: From Nazareth to Nicaea. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013.

Wilken, Robert Louis. The First Thousand Years: A Global History of Christianity. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012. *Especially the chapter “Ephesus, Rome, and Edessa: The Spread of Christianity,” which provide sa brief overview of the earliest spread of Christianity and some of the leaders associated with spread to certain areas.