Matthew and Luke drop Alexander and Rufus because their audiences may not know them (or they had died)

Matthew 27:32 and Luke 23:26 both tell the Simon of Cyrene story but omit the names Alexander and Rufus. Mike suggests this is because Matthew's and Luke's audiences did not know these men (different communities), or because Alexander and Rufus had died by the time those Gospels were written. This pattern of name dropping — not name adding — is consistent with Bauckham's theory and contrary to Bultmann's.