Michael Goulder once said that New Testament scholars often substitute counting for thinking, and I confess to enjoying some counting myself. I'm writing about the disciples in John's Gospel at the moment, and found myself writing that John (son of Zebedee) is the disciple mentioned most often in the Synoptics after Peter. So then I had to check to see if that is true, and it is.
It's likely that someone else has done a similar count, but if so, I couldn't find it, and Googling was useless. Anyway, here are the figures. These are numbers of appearances of each disciple, and not the number of times their names appear (thus passages in which disciples' names appear multiple times are counted once; "sons of Zebedee" = James and John; the Peter list includes "Simon" and "Simon Peter").
Simon Peter: 40 (Matt: 12; Mark: 14; Luke: 14):
Matt. 4.18, 10.2, 14.28-33, 16.13-20, 16.21-23, 17.1-8, 17.24-27, 18.21-22, 19.27-30, 26.31-35, 26.36-46, 26.58 and 69-75.
Mark 1.16-20, 1.29-31, 1.36, 3.16, 5.37, 8.31-3, 9.2-8, 10.28-31, 11.20-24, 13.3, 14.26-31, 14.32-42, 14.54 and 14.66-72, 16.7.
Luke 4.38-39, 5.1-11, 6.14, 8.45R, 8.51, 9.18-20, 9.28-36, 12.41, 18.28-30, 22.7-13, 22.31-34, 22.54-62, 24.12, 24.34.
James: 18 (Matt: 5; Mark: 8; Luke: 5):
Matt. 4.21, 10.2, 17.1-8, 20.20-28, 26.36-46 (plus one bonus appearance from mom in 27.56).
Mark 1.16-20, 1.29-31, 3.17, 5.37, 9.2-8, 10.35-45, 13.3, 14.32-42.
Luke 5.10, 6.14, 8.51, 9.28-36, 9.51-56.
John: 21 (Matt: 5; Mark: 9; Luke: 7):
Matt. 4.21, 10.2, 17.1-8, 20.20-28, 26.36-46 (plus one bonus appearance from mom in 27.56).
Mark 1.16-20, 1.29-31, 3.17, 5.37, 9.2-8, 9.38-41, 10.35-45, 13.3, 14.32-42.
Luke 5.10, 6.14, 8.51, 9.28-36, 9.49-50, 9.51-56, 22.7-13.
Andrew: 7 (Matt: 2; Mark: 4; Luke: 1):
Matt. 4.18, 10.2.
Mark 1.16-20, 1.29-31, 3.18, 13.3.
Luke 6.14.
Judas: 13 (Matt: 5; Mark: 4; Luke: 4)
Matt. 10.4, 26.14-16, 26.20-25, 26.47-56, 27.3-10.
Mark 3.19, 14.10-11, 14.17-21, 14.43-52.
Luke 6.16, 22.3-6, 22.21-23, 22.47-53.
Matthew: 4 (Matt: 9.9-10; Matt. 10.3 // Mark 3.18 // Luke 6.15)
Everyone else appears only in the disciple lists (Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus / Lebbaeus / Judas son of James, Simon the Cananaean / Zealot, Matt. 10.2-4 // Mark 3.13-19 // Luke 6.12-16).
It should be easy to arrange the data above synoptically too, and then to add figures for John and Acts. I'll do that next.
