Robert said
There’s only a few situations where source-critical options definitely impact or even determine text-critical decisions, and this is not one of them. You’re just letting your misguided obsession with Matthean priority cloud your misunderstanding of text-criticism. I asked you earlier if you were familiar with text criticism and you ignored that question. Ignoring scholarship with a ready made excuse for why you don’t need to consider it is, once again, not serving you well in this discussion.

“It’s in most manuscripts, but is missing from two of the oldest (that are not usually closely related to each other); and “his” may have been taken over from Matthew’s version. So I’d say on balance it probably was not originally in Mark. But it’s a close call.”

Is there really much more to it?

If Mark is writing first there may be no good reason for a scribe to remove “his” from Mark’s gospel. And a good reason for a scribe to add it would be to make Mark match Matthew. So in that case the majority text might be overruled in favor of “no good reason to remove it” but “good reason to add it”. But it would be a close call.

However if Matthew is writing first then whatever reason Mark may have had to remove “his” from Matthew could be equally applied to a later scribe removing it from Mark. So in that case the evidence should fall in favor of the majority text.

Robert said
If one assumes Matthean priority, one would also need to take into account the material Mark would have purposefully omitted from Matthew’s gospel (eg, the Son of Man separating the the sheep and the goats), which would also correspond to no longer seeing the Son of Man as the one who selects the elect in the future.

Not really. The sheep and goats story is about good people being selected for good deeds. Even those who don’t recognise or believe in Christ. “Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?”

The mere moral good of the act is enough. This is what is removed by Mark.

In Mark its those who are persecuted for the name of Jesus and persist until the end that are saved. Matthew’s “Not all those who say to me Lord lord will enter the kingdom of heaven but only those who do the will of my father in heaven” also gets removed. Why ignore this aspect?

An additional transcriptional probability argument in favor of ‘his’ being added is that this might merely make explicit how the text could have been read even without the presence of ‘his’,

So do you agree now that “his elect” makes the reading explicit?

and this understanding of the text is even more likely because of the use of ‘his angels’ immediately preceding. On the other hand, there’s no good argument based on transcriptional probability for why a scribe would omit ‘his’ here.

How about an error? What is the chance of random errors resulting in a couple of manuscripts missing a “his”? Especially if the text reads fine without it.

You’re second paragraph does not make any sense. If Mark removed ‘his’ here, it would be congruent with his removal of Matthew’s sheep and goats parable and thus would be much more pertinent to the behavior of Mark as the author than to a later scribe who had no involvement in the removal of the parable.

It would not necessarily be congruent – as above.

Even if it was congruent that would be a reason for a later scribe to remove “his”. To make Mark more internally consistent.

Robert said

Selected is selected. Whatever point you are trying to make beyond that seems irrelevant or at least is not at all clear to me.

The point is if Matthew is writing first we can’t be sure Mark is removing the “sheep and goats” story because he doesn’t like the idea of Jesus doing the selecting.

He is removing a story in which the selection is based on good deeds, not suffering for the name of Jesus. 

Which version is older? Being judged based on good deeds or being judged based on suffering for christ? In Mark it is those who endure to the end that are saved. Jesus doing the selecting isn’t what he has an issue with.

So do you agree now that “his elect” makes the reading explicit?

It makes explicit that the elect are his elect. It does not exclude the likelihood that his elect are also the elect who have been chosen by the Father.

The likelihood is that “his” elect have been elected by someone else? 

If a writer wants to maintain the idea that the father has chosen the elect what possible reason could they have for adding “his” to make it explicit that they are the elect of Jesus but in a non-electing sense?

“An additional transcriptional probability argument in favor of ‘his’ being added is that this might merely make explicit how the text could have been read even without the presence of ‘his’,“

What is your argument in favor of a scribe adding “his” supposed to be? What are they making explicit? They are explicitly the elect of Jesus even though they have been elected by someone else?

That’s not the kind of thing scribes do, and it is certainly much, much less likely that any scribe would do such a thing than an author making such a change would strive for consistency. And, of course, it wouldn’t be a random mistake as you were suggesting above. Bottom line, there are very good reasons to explain why and how a scribe might add ‘his’, and no good reason for a scribe to omit it. And, again, there’s no relevance of Markan or Matthean priority in this text-critical judgment.

Its extremely relevant. If Mark is writing first then the question is – is “his” original or not. A case must be made for both.

If Matthew is writing first we know that “his” is original. And a case must be made for why Mark would remove. The scales are no longer weighed evenly.

Robert said

It doesn’t matter why he would have removed it, he nonetheless would have removed it.

Of course it matters. We’re trying to show Mark’s removal of the story would support the case that he would remove “his”. But this can only be the case if both edits were done for the same reason. If he’s happy for Jesus to be the elector, but not happy that he elects based on good deeds, then there would be no reason to think he’d remove “his”. The “why” matters.

What are they making explicit?

What they are so very much more familiar with from the text of Matthew.

But what they would be more familiar with from Matthew is that Jesus does the electing. Is that what they are trying to make explicit when they add “his” to Mark?

But a good case cannot be made for Mark writing ‘his’. You’ve been trying to do this for months (or even years?) now and nothing has come of it.

But a good case is easy to make for Mark writing “his”. Bart says its a close call. It can only be a close call if a good case can be made for either side.

You, on the other hand, are trying ever so insistently to tell us what Mark was thinking when he ridiculously and senselessly redacted the gospel of Matthew. What should we call your method? Upside-down, backward, pseudo redaction-critical avoidance of centuries of good scholarship? Maybe that’s a little wordy.

Why do think I’m describing a ridiculous and senseless redaction of Matthew? Mark would be removing the older form of election based on good deeds in favor of promoting the newer form based on enduring through suffering for the name of christ.