The Acts of the Apostles is the second part of a two part work which began with the Gospel of Luke. Together the two books comprise 25% of the content of the New Testament, the largest contribution of any one author. The Apostle Paul wrote more individual writings that were included in the New Testament, but all together they are still less than 25% of the New Testament.
Without doubt, the book of Acts is composed along the lines of an ancient history, as Ehrman indicates. I have often wondered if the idea that it follows the model of pagan history writing really fits Acts, even though Ehrman seems sure that it does. In the ancient world, writing was often done according to appropriate models. In the case of Acts, it would seem to me that the most likely model would be similar writings about the history of God's dealings with humanity in the Jewish tradition, of which the books 1 & 2 Samuel and 1 & 2 Kings in the Old Testament would be the best examples. Luke 1:1-4 demonstrates that this author is capable of composing in literary Greek, but the remainder of Luke is written in rather simplified prose. Acts contains more occurrences of literary features than the Gospel, but the closest parallel to the style of writing we find in Acts is the Greek version of the Old Testament history books.
The book of Acts is the story of the beginning of the Christian movement as it emerged following Jesus' resurrection. Of course, any history tells its story from a particular slant and Acts is no different. Peter and Paul were not the only major players in early Christianity, but they get the primary attention in Acts. The fact that the New Testament also includes numerous letters by Paul, means that his theological viewpoint became the dominant perspective in the church in the next 100-200 years, and a history of the early church in which he is a major player would be appropriately included. We have no idea if there were other Gospels or other histories of Christianity besides the canonical four plus Acts written in the same time frame (some scholars believe the Gospel of Thomas is old enough to be counted as a competing option), but except for maybe Thomas, the canonical four plus Acts are the oldest surviving historical record we have of Jesus and the early church.
There may be dozens of significant Apostles that were active in early Christianity that we know nothing about. Indeed, we know by inference that in the early years the Jerusalem church played a major role in early Christianity. But that came to an end with the destruction of the temple and upheaval caused by the Jewish revolt against Rome, 66-70 CE. The church in Jerusalem ceased to have a major role in Christianity until almost 100 years later. By that point the church was a Greek speaking church and Aramaic speaking Christianity had ceased to exist (at least as a language used in worship), even in Jerusalem.
In the opening section of Acts, chapter 1 verses 7 & 8 present the theme of this book, spreading the message about Jesus first in Judea, then in Samaria and then to the ends of the earth (which in this case means Rome, as that is where the story concludes). The book of Acts is about the spread of Christianity in its early years, primarily as this occurred through the Apostles Peter and Paul. The opening pages show the initial growth of the church via the Apostles' preaching (Acts chap. 2) and the resistance they encountered (Acts chap. 5).
In Acts chap. 6 we see a tension that was indicative of the difficulties of a church growing rapidly and in ways the original members had not anticipated. The church was attracting numerous converts from Greek speaking Judaism (Hellenists) in addition to Aramaic speaking Judaism (Hebrews), and the coexistence was testy because of the language issue. But things only get more complicated as the message of Jesus spreads. With the persecution that arose after the death of Stephen (a Greek speaking Jewish Christian evangelist), some of the Greek speaking Jewish Christians get run out of town and preach in Samaria and make numerous converts there (see Acts chap. 8). But this seems questionable to the church leaders in Jerusalem(since Samaritans were despised by most Jews), so representatives from the Jerusalem church go to Samaria to validate the mission to the Samaritans. Here we have the first instance of Christianity stepping outside of Judaism since most Jews did not consider Samaritans to be Jews, even though the Samaritans believed their religion faithfully followed the Law of Moses.
Christianity in Acts then spreads next to non-Jews (pagans or Gentiles, take your pick as to what you wish to call non-Jews) when Peter is summoned to preach to a Roman army officer named Cornelius who is presented a someone very sympathetic to Judaism (Acts 10). Peter then is told to justify to the other Apostles in Jerusalem his reaching out to pagans with the Christian message(Acts 11), in particular Peter must justify the fact that he violated the kosher rules by eating with non-Jews. While Acts presents this story in retrospect as a matter on whether Peter was justified in breaking the kosher rules, this really whitewashes the major issue which is much more starkly stated in Galatians 2 and politely put in Acts 15, and that is what must have been a heated debate within Jerusalem Christianity whether or not to recognize as being Christian - believers who did not follow the Jewish lifestyle. At first, for pagans to become Jewish Christians, that would mean being circumcised and adopting Jewish kosher and Sabbath rules. It is never reported that Cornelius is told he must do so. Paul in Galatians 2 considers it a hard won battle that his Christian mission to pagans (without imposing the Jewish Law) was endorsed by the Apostles in Jerusalem (presumably referring to the event mentioned in Acts 15), but in Galatians that hard won concession seems in jeopardy many years later.
It is worth noting that at every important juncture in Acts when the Christian evangelistic mission expands into new areas, it seems necessary to get the approval of the Apostles in Jerusalem. But even if this is true for the author of Acts, at the time of writing it is also a bit of nostalgia, since the Jerusalem church had largely been dispersed by the Jewish-Roman war only a decade before. And it is also worth noting, that when Acts is written, most (maybe all) of the early Apostles have died, the Jerusalem church is small to non-existent and Aramaic speaking Jewish Christianity has largely disappeared. By the time Acts is written (about 80-85 CE), the majority of Christians are converts from paganism and the whole matter of whether or not Christians should keep the Jewish Law is a debate that is in the past. Paul's version of Christianity is the version endorsed by Acts, and that is the direction in which Christianity continued to move.
In Acts chap. 13, "Saul, also known as Paul" becomes the focal point of the narrative. Some people have supposed a connection between Paul's conversion and a name change. But this is most certainly (in my opinion) not the case. Paul was bilingual. He was equally capable of speaking in both Greek and Aramaic. When in Jerusalem (no doubt) he spoke in Aramaic. The best evidence for this is that Paul almost always refers to Peter as Cephas (pronounced Kay-phas, which in Aramaic means - Rocky, the same as Petros means in Greek) (see 1 Corinthians 3:22, 9:5, 15:5; Galatians 1:18, 2:9, 2:11, 2:14). The only place that Paul refers to Peter as Peter is Galatians 2:7-8 in which he refers to the agreement they had. Which means that whenever Paul spoke to Peter face to face he called him by his Aramaic nickname Cephas. So, if Paul uses both Peter's Greek name (Peter) and his Aramaic name (Cephas), which is obviously a matter of working within two different languages, it would seem that the presence in Acts of both a Hebrew (Saul) and a Greek (Paul) name for Paul would also be representative of the need to operate bilingually. What seems the strongest support for this interpretation of the Saul/Paul names is that Paul says he was born a Roman citizen (see Acts 22:28). If so, he would have had to be registered as a child with a Latin name (thus Paulus, which he writes in Greek as Paulos). The introduction of the name Paul in Acts 13:9 makes sense as it is at this point that Paul has begun his missionary work among the pagans (primarily) which will be the focus of the remainder of Acts.
Even though Paul has been commissioned as the Apostle to the nations (Gentiles, pagans, non-Jews, use whatever term you like) he still often begins his evangelistic work in a particular city by first preaching to whatever Jews might be there. That narrative piece (which may have historical merit to it) is employed as a narrative device in Acts to show over and over again that the attempt to proclaim the message of Jesus to Jews is met with rejection, but embraced by the pagans. The best example of this is found in Acts 13:46.
This brings me to a note about the speeches in Acts. One hundred years ago, even the historical skeptics believed the speeches/sermons in Acts represented excerpted examples of early Christian preaching (conservative scholars still believe this). Then a German scholar by the name of Martin Dibelius noticed that regardless of whether the speech was attributed to Peter or Paul it had very similar features and organization. This led Dibelius to postulate that it was the author of Acts who composed these speeches and that they did not represent historical remembrances. The best example of this is to compare Peter's Pentecost speech (Acts 2) and Paul's speech in Pisidian Antioch (Acts 13). Both are preached to predominantly Jewish audiences and there are four interesting similarities that led Dibelius (and most historical critical scholars after him) to conclude the author of Acts is the author of the speeches. First there is a reference to God's activity with his people of long ago (taken from scripture) (compare Acts 2:17-21 & Acts 13:17-22). Secondly there is a reference to the historical situation of Jesus and his rejection by the Jewish people (compare Acts 2:22-24 and Acts 13:23-31). Thirdly there are references to Jewish scripture that are interpreted as prophecy foretelling the coming of Jesus and the events that happened with him (compare Acts 2:25-28, 31, 34-35 and Acts 13:33-35). And fourthly, a call to conversion (compare Acts 2:38-38 and Acts 13:38-40). These similarities have lead most historical critical scholars to focus on these speeches as Lukan inventions and Ehrman is no different in this regard.
A note on the authorship of Acts. Until the 20th century, most scholars believed the author of Acts was a companion of the Apostle Paul. This is based on the so-called "we" passages in which the narrator uses the first person plural in his narration. This first plural narration begins at Acts 16:11 but ends abruptly at 16:16, only to be picked up again at 20:6. This might seem strange, but on closer examination it fits together because the first plural narration stops abruptly in Philippi and then picks up again in Philippi indicating that maybe this does represent an actual first person account of Paul's travels, as the first plural narration is mostly associated with sea travel to Philippi and then from Philippi to Jerusalem. Modern scholars debate whether this is an actual first person account (which I am inclined to accept) or an interesting narrative device contrived by the author. Traditionally the source has been attributed to the Luke mentioned in Colossians 4:14 and by inference to say that this Luke is the author of both the Gospel and Acts. Modern historical scholars do not believe there is any validity to this tradition. And if the "we" passages in Acts are an actual first person account, there is no way to determine who is the author of these passages from the information we have now. It would all be speculation.
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