In this three-volume set, Apostasy in the New Testament Communities, B. J. Oropeza offers the most thorough examination in recent times on the subject of apostasy in the New Testament. The study examines each book of the New Testament and identifies the emerging Christian community in danger, the nature of apostasy that threatens the congregations, and the consequences of defection. Oropeza compares the various perspectives of the New Testament communities on the subject of apostasy to arrive at the idea that the earliest followers of Christ did not all believe and teach alike on the issue. The first volume, In the Footsteps of Judas and Other Defectors, focuses on the Christ-communities of the Gospels, Acts, and Johannine Letters.

B. J. Oropeza (PhD, University of Durham) is the founder of the Intertextuality in the New Testament Section of the Society of Biblical Literature. He is Professor of Biblical and Religious Studies at Azusa Pacific University and is an internationally published author whose many works include the subjects of Pauline studies, Corinthian correspondence, intertextuality, sociorhetorical criticism, and a three-volume monograph series titled Apostasy in the New Testament Communities. He is a member of the Rhetoric of Religious Antiquity.

Steve Moyise is Visiting Professor at Newman University, Birmingham, UK, and author of Was the Birth of Jesus according to Scripture? (Cascade, 2013); the trilogy Paul and Scripture, Jesus and Scripture, and The Later New Testament Writings and Scripture (2010-12); and Evoking Scripture: Hearing the Old Testament in the New (2008).