Why are two angels mentioned in Luke and John but only one in Matthew and Mark?

Answer 1

Another answer from our community:

If you read all four of the gospels, you will find that the stories all have the same ideas, but different details. The only reason this happened is because some authors of the gospels actually witnessed certain events, and some got their information second-hand.

Answer 2

Archbishop Peter Carnley addressed this very issue:
"The presence of discrepancies might be a sign of historicity if we had four clearly independent but slightly different versions of the story, if only for the reason that four witnesses are better than one. But, of course, it is now impossible to argue that what we have in the four gospel accounts of the empty tomb are four contemporaneous but independent accounts of the one event. Modern redactional studies of the traditions account for the discrepancies as literary developments at the hand of later redactors of what was originally one report of the empty tomb...
There is no suggestion that the tomb was discovered by different witnesses on four different occasions, so it is in fact impossible to argue that the discrepancies were introduced by different witnesses of the one event; rather, they can be explained as four different redactions for apologetic and kerygmatic reasons of a single story originating from one source."

Answer 3

Each Gospel writer focused on different aspects of Jesus' life and ministry. Luke and John included more details about angelic appearances to emphasize specific themes such as the humanity and divinity of Jesus. Matthew and Mark may have chosen to focus more on Jesus' teachings and actions rather than angelic encounters.