GMark, likely the original Gospel narrative, has quite the reputation for Irony. GMatthew, likely the next Gospel written, used GMark as a base, and in general tried to make the Gospel narrative sound more historical which meant in general toning down the irony. Thus in total, GMatthew is less early, funny and ironic than GMark. A related observation though which would even make GMark's Jesus sore amazed is that in some individual parallel stories of GMark/GMatthew, it is GMatthew that is even more ironic than GMark.
The default explanation is simply that "Matthew" (author) as editor of GMark, while decreasing irony in general, increased it in a few chosen spots. Another possibility though is that to the extent GMatthew shows more irony than GMark, the explanation is that GMatthew has simply preserved original GMark while extant GMark, without this irony, had it edited out without a trace (other than GMatthew). This would help explain a few things such as:
- 1) Hardly any extant GMark for the first few centuries compared to extant not GMark. GMark may have been so extremely ironic that it was recognized fiction or at least not wanted as supposed historical evidence.
2) GMatthew was the favored Gospel in the early Church and the Church taught it was the first written. Maybe it was just the first Gospel accepted by the early Church.
3) It could be that after GMatthew was written GMark was accepted by the early Church because of its similarity to GMatthew and once it was accepted it was copied and edited gradually reducing the irony.
1) 27
The source here looks like:16 And they had then a notable prisoner, called Barabbas.
Mark 15
Skeptical Textual Criticism though indicates that "Jesus Barabbas"7 And there was one called Barabbas, [lying] bound with them that had made insurrection, men who in the insurrection had committed murder.
is likely original to GMatthew. While even just with "Barabbas" the irony is UUUGE since you have one "Barabbas" by name that is rebelling against Rome and committing murder compared to a "Bar Abbas" by title who is rebelling against The Jews and committing life. Already polemic opposites that The Jews will choose between. Since one of the two has an expanded name/title of "Jesus Bar Abbas", the irony would be even greater if the other one was also "Jesus Barabbas" by name and this is what original GMatthew appears to have. I mean what are the odds that historically both were Jesus Barabbas considering there is no evidence that anyone else in history had such a name? From a style and irony standpoint this would be just the type of thing that "Mark" would do, have the same name for people who are opposites in some way with the extreme irony being literary evidence that the point being made by the author was more important to the author than history/sounding historical. Style.
Can we find more examples?
Joseph
The New Porphyry