My son asked me a question about apparent conflicting accounts of the crucifixion in the books of Matthew, Mark and Luke.
In two of these accounts it says the criminals crucified with Jesus both cursed him but in Luke the account says one rebuked the other for cursing Jesus and was saved. Can you you answer this important question for us?
It’s important to remember that none of the gospel writers was giving us a strictly historical account of events.
It’s also important to remember that all of them were writing under the influence of the Holy Spirit, who inspired Matthew and Mark not to include the part about the one criminal who came to a saving faith in the Lord while he was hanging there. But did inspire Luke to include that incident. Notice that John didn’t say anything about the incident at all. This is why you have to read all four gospels.
So it’s not that they disagree, it’s just that they each wrote the gospel from a different perspective. For more information about the different gospels, you can read my article, The Four Faces of Jesus