Characters in Acts

Many readers of Acts know that the character of Paul dominates the book. But Sean Adams has put some mathematical quantification to that observation. It is also interesting to see how other characters in Acts fare as can be seen in Adams' table below.

Character	Verses	Words/episode	Total of words	Percentage
Jesus	1.1–9	166	166	0.9%
Disciples (general)	1.10–14	118
	1.23–2.13	255
	6.1–7	138
	15.5–34	480	991	5.4%
‘Believers’	2.41–7	117
	4.24–35	251	368	2.0%
Apostles and Peter	5.12–42	566	566	3.1%
Peter with disciples	1.15–22	160
	2.14–40	525
	5.1–11	206	891	4.8%
Peter with John	3.1–4.23	908
	8.14–25	199	1,107	6.0%
Peter alone	9.32–11.18	1,373
	12.3–19	372	1,745	9.5%
	[15.7–11=98]
Barnabas	4.36–7	31
	11.19–26	153	184	1.0%
Stephen	6.8–8.3	1,326	1,326	7.2%
Philip	8.4–13,26–40	433	433	2.3%
Ananias	9.10–17	169	169	0.9%
Saul/Paul alone	9.1–9	144
	9.18–35	251
	17.16–18.23	779
	19.1–20.3	809
	20.18–38	373
	21.26–26.32	3,154
	27.17–31	306	5,816	32.1%
Paul and Barnabas	11.27–30?	64
	12.24–15.4	1,533
	[15.12=23]
	15.35–41	112	1,709	9.3%
Paul and Silas/’we’	16.1–17.15	1,023
	20.4–17	251
	21.1–17	309
	27.1–28–28.16	1,046	2,629	14.2%
Paul and James	21.18–25	153	153	0.8%
James (disciple)	12.1–2?	24	24	0.1%
James (brother)	15.13–21	130	130	.07%
Herod	12.20–3	74	74	0.4%
Apollos, Priscilla, and Aquila	18.24–8	103	103	0.6%

Sean Adams, The Genre of Acts and Collected Bibliography, SNTSMS 156 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 130-31.