Uses genre theory to explore the composition and purpose of Acts, concluding that it is a work of collected biography.

Sean A. Adams is British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Edinburgh. He is co-editor of Issues in Luke-Acts (with Michael Pahl, 2012) and Paul and the Ancient Letter Form (with Stanley E. Porter, 2010), and is also the author of Baruch and Epistle of Jeremiah (2014).

1. Introduction; 2. Modern and ancient genre theory; 3. Ancient individual and collected biographies; 4. Acts as collected biography; 5. Characterisation in Acts; 6. Peter, Paul and the ending of Acts; 7. Conclusion; Appendix 1. Literary topoi in ancient Greek biographies; Appendix 2. References to biographical works in Diogenes Laertius' Lives of the Philosophers; Appendix 3. Divisions in collected biographies.