When the editors of the Mishna, Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi or whoever else, decided to compile the various sources that made up that massive work, they had to decide what went in and what stayed out. There has been a lot of literature about these decisions. Some of these decisions are very surprising. Why is there no mesechta devoted to Tefillin, Mezuzot, Sefer Torah, Gerut, Brit Milah, Chanukah? These are mesechtot that have many complex laws, and certainly deserve to be discussed. Yet, they are usually topics relegated to a random mishnah here, or there, and when discussed by the Talmud, are usually quoted through baraitot that weren't in the canonized Mishnah.
We also have to figure out why the topics were divided into 6 main sedarim of "Agriculture" "Festival" "Women" "Damages" "Holies" "Purities". Why 6?
We also must note that the order of the Mesechtot are also a mystery. Now, a given mesechta's chapter and topic orders may be random, and maybe they were not specifically ordered in one way or another, but surely the order of the mesechtot themselves should be expected to follow some order. Maimonides, in his introduction to the Mishnah, attempts to provide reasonable explanations as to this order, sometimes relying on explanations of related themes, orders of inquiry, and other such ad hoc explanations that could be explained the same way if it weren't the way it was now. For example, Maimonides explains why Gittin, divorce, precedes Kiddushin, marriage. Now, the old married man's joke goes that the Torah's way is to place the antidote before the poison, and Rav Feldman likes to talk seriously about how the gravity of divorce is important to realize before entering into marriage. The concept that the order of the mesechtot are there simply for lesson's sake, like Avot being in Nezikin to teach that middot are important and bad middot are damaging etc, is an interesting one but not serious. Maimonides here bases it off the verse, that in Deuteronomy 24:1, it describes divorce and gittin, and then in 24:2 it describes her marrying again.
Now Rav Reuven Margoliot in Yesod HaMishna V'Arichata disagrees with this approach, since the beginning of 24:1 also discribes marriage, so it's really Marriage-Divorce-Marriage, and it would therefore make more sense to have kiddushin befor gittin if we are basing it off of the verse there. For his part, he thinks that the order of the mesechtot are based simply off of chapter size. The problem he is forced to deal with is that many mesechtot don't follow this bigger-to-smaller plan, and he has to resolve these. So, he tries to prove that Sanhedrin and Makkot are really one mesechta, and obviously the Bavas are together.
The ones he cannot resolve he puts in their own category of random mesechtot, and he theorizes fascinatingly that Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi actually had 7 orders of the Mishnah. Why 7? Because it is Rabbi Yehudah who has the opinion that the 5 Books of Moses are actually 7 books of Moses, that the backward nuns surround "vayehi binsoa" are their own sefer. Thus, Rabbi Yehudah looked to the Torah as precedent for how many books he would have as well.
Rav Reuven's approach to what made it in to the Mishnah is also fascinating. He thinks that the Mishnah was, in addition to other things, motivated by political concerns. The Roman government was reasonably suspicious of this group of religious separtists who refused to join Roman society, to look like them, act like them, hold the same celebrations as them. The Roman rulers were understandably concerned for a possible fomenting rebellion. So, we find in many places in the Talmud, that laws were passed to prevent such religious activities. In order to show the Roman government that the things they learned and whispered in that queer Aramaic/Hebrew language in the Bet Midrash was not of rebellion, he published this Mishnah. So conversion would not be discussed, nor Milah, Tefillin, etc.
What we find with Maimonide's approach with the order of Gittin and Kiddushin, and Rav Reuven's approach with how many sedarim there were originally in the Mishnah, both imagine Rabbi Yehudah as looking to Scripture for precedent.
Taking that approach, we could simply say that the Torah itself has no laws about converts (other than perhaps to treat them well), so the Mishnah did not include them. The laws of tefillin, tzitzit, shechita, mezuzot, and so many other laws also were only mentioned, but never really explained what they are. In fact, the Talmud relies on Laws given to Moses at Sinai (orally) as a source for many of the aforementioned things. I wonder if this follows through with everything else, and I wonder if anyone else has mentioned this. What would come out from this is that Megillah is in the Mishnah because there is a book and several laws in Scripture, while this is not true for Chanukah, and therefore was not in the Mishna as well.
What if Scripture was sometimes set up by rabbis looking to the halachic system, sort of the other way around from what we have been discussing? Now I don't mean particular verses and how they're orders, but the order of the books, and what is included in the canon and what was kept out, could be because of halachic concerns. Not every time, but sometimes.
I have in mind at least two examples.
There is a discussion in Talmud Rosh Hashana whether the Megillat Taanit is no longer in effect or not. Now, Megillat Taanit listed holidays that were forbidden to fast and give eulogies on, as well as the day preceding it and after it.
The Talmud distinguishes between holidays that have their basis in Scripture (which are then compared to Torah holidays) and those that are purely rabbinic, that one can fast before or after Scripturally based holidays because they do not need the "chizuk" of a three day ban on fasting that rabbinic holidays do.
The Ran on the Rif there asks why we are allowed to fast on Taanit Esther, if it is before Purim, which is in Megillat Taanit, and rabbinic. He answers that since it has a basis in Scripture, it doesn't need the Chizuk.
This got me thinking that perhaps one of the reasons Megillat Esther was put into the canon was to allow for Tannit Esther to take place before it. Without the scriptural basis for the holiday, Taanit Esther would have ceased to exist. (The question remains how far back Taanit Esther goes and if it was always the day before Purim.)
The point being, that perhaps Megillat Esther was needed in the canon for a halachic reason/reasons, which was not true for Macabbees, which did not have a set fast before or after it.
Another example I was thinking of is that the Talmud Rosh Hashana's discussion of how we know that the count of Jewish kings begins in Nisan. After many supposedly solid proofs are thrown away, we are forced to go all the way to Chronicles for a proof. Perhaps that is why Chronicles is there?
Certainly, we find halachic concerns present for whether Ezekiel would be included in the canon, because many of his statements do not accord with the halacha, until they were able to resolve the seeming inconsistencies.
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I had another thought about order of the Mishna. Again, my basic thought above is that the authors and editors of the Mishna were looking to the Torah as precedent for their style as well, and the rabbis editing the canon's inclusions and exclusions may have looked to Jewish law in general to make some of their determinations. In discussing this, I stayed away from specifics of each book's details, only how the composition may have gone as a whole.
But, if we want to know more about the Mishna's composition, we should look more into the style and format of the Torah as well.
The first thing to wonder is if there is any parallel, or connection, between the first chapter or chapters of Genesis and the first Mishna or Mesechet of Mishnah. Certainly the concept of Shema, a declaration of belief in God and His providence, goes hand in hand with the Creation story. But perhaps there is something more important going on here. It would seem that narrative, especially narrative that doesn't seem to give us any laws, is unnecessary to a book of laws, the Torah. Rashi's deals with this problem in relation to the land of Israel. However, there might be a much more immediate connection here. The Ramban believes that the first commandment, "Anochi Hashem", has a purpose in telling us why we should keep the rest of the commandments. It's like an introduction to why God has the authority to tell us what to do. Indeed, I think that that is what is happening in the Genesis story. The story establishes why the Torah has an authority over us as humans, and then later in the Exodus story as to why us as Jews. Meaning, Genesis helps establishe the Torah's laws as binding.
Perhaps that is also the set-up in the first Mishnah. Rabbi Yehudah picked a Mishnah that establishes the authority of the rabbis in their laws, the most fundamental reason the rabbis have any authority - to make sure people don't screw up in their religious observance. They created a fence for Shema - you must do it before midnight. Not because midnight is the cut-off point, but because of the human propensity to wait to the last minute and end up missing it.
Just like the Torah had to set up a Creation story that necessarily responded to prevalent theories of creation in order to refute them and establish the Torah's authority, the Mishna had to deal with sectarian beliefs as well, and so that first Mishna is responding to them.
This is a view of order-as-polemic.
A similar case can be made in relation to the first Mishna in Shabbat. The first Mishna deals with Hotzaa, carrying in public on the Sabbath, and many commentators deal with why this should be so, if it is actually the last in the list of 39 main ones later on in the mesechet. The majority deal with the concept of "melacha gerua", a "weak" melacha, and exactly what that means is also up to debate. It is meant to mean that it is an unusual melacha in its application, and therefore begins the mesechet. But there could be a different consideration here. The New Testament passages dealing with the keeping of the Sabbath deals with issues where it is hard to keep the Sabbath. For example, some hungry people can't eat on the Sabbath because they can't pick off grain to eat? They can't carry some grain from their silo to their house? Mark says "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath." This is indeed very different than the Pharisaic concept of the Sabbath.
It could be this was an issue that Rabbi Yehuda had to deal with. So he put a mishna in the beginning of Mesechet Shabbat that deals with carrying, specifically a case where a poor man and a rich man are interacting with the transfer of food on the Sabbath. EVEN THEN, the laws apply. However, even in the law there are some allowances, and these are discussed as well. This is very important to establish for the Pharasaic concept of the Sabbath.
Order-as-polemic might exist in the Mishna Torah of Maimonides as well. This will be discussed soon.
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