Why Didn't Matthew Sort Events by Chronology?

(rough draft - incomplete)

The question must now be asked: "If Matthew is the one who did not sort events in chronological order, why on earth would he have chosen to rearrange the events in the particular manner that he did? Was it "just for the sake of being different?" Why didn't he just record all events according to chronological progression like Mark did?

To help answer this question, let’s take a look at two hypothetical situations that will use the Billy Meier case for illustration:

Below are two made-up sequences of reported events concerning the Billy Meier case that stand as outlines of two hypothetical reports that have been created by two hypothetical writers who have investigated the Billy Meier case and have recorded their findings on paper. This example will be over-simplified to make the point especially clear. Observe the two sequences very carefully:

Sequence 1
1. an unimpressive photo event occurs
2. impressive landing tracks are found
3. a most impressive metal specimen is analyzed
4. most impressive sound recordings are heard
5. unimpressive sound recordings are heard
6. impressive video footage is produced
7. an impressive photo event occurs
8. an unimpressive metal specimen is analyzed
9. most impressive landing tracks are found
10. amazing video footage is produced
11. unimpressive video footage is produced
12. impressive sound recordings are heard
13. a most impressive photo event occurs
14. unimpressive landing tracks are found
15. an impressive metal specimen is analyzed

Sequence 2

1. an unimpressive photo event occurs
2. an impressive photo event occurs
3. a most impressive photo event occurs
4. unimpressive sound recordings are heard
5. impressive sound recordings are heard
6. most impressive sound recordings are heard
7. unimpressive landing tracks are found
8. impressive landing tracks are found
9. most impressive landing tracks are found
10. unimpressive video footage is produced
11. impressive video footage is produced
12. amazing video footage is produced
13. an unimpressive metal specimen is analyzed
14. an impressive metal specimen is analyzed
15. a most impressive metal specimen is analyzed

Now in this hypothetical situation, let's say that you are given 2 and only 2 choices for simplification purposes. One sequence is reported in chronological order by one of the writers and the other sequence is arranged in a carefully structured order by the author according to an intended purpose of the author. Which sequence would you most likely choose not to have been arranged in chronological order, a sequence that, instead, was sorted carefully by the author according to the author's style, method, and purpose?

In this case, the choice is simple. Sequence 1 is much more likely to have occurred chronologically, even without looking at transitions between the events, while sequence 2 has much more likely been carefully arranged by the author of the sequence for specific purposes. If sequence 1 contained transitions that implied forward progression through time between all events (like, for example, Mark's gospel), the choice would be even easier to identify sequence 1 as having been reported according to chronological progression of events. What are the odds that 3 photo events, 3 sound recording events, 3 landing track events, 3 video footage events, and 3 metal specimen analyses all occurred in a chronological order that showed a consistent progression from least impressive to most impressive among all types of events? Events in life just never happen to occur in such a nice and tidy order. However, it is much more likely that all of these events could have happened, perhaps in the manner as reported by Sequence 1, but that the writer of Sequence 2 chose to sort these events in an order that would make the report more presentable to his intended audience. While this is a hypothetical and over-simplified example using the Billy Meier case, this example does, indeed, relate to actual reports on the Billy Meier case.

Gary Kinder, the author of Light Years: An Investigation into the Extraterrestrial Experiences of Eduard Meier, was one such reporter on the Billy Meier case. In his book, he starts off by describing a scene where Billy Meier leaves witnesses on a dark and snowy night, entering a forest. Later that night, Billy mysteriously appears before the cold and wet witnesses, showing evidence that Billy was not at all wet prior to his appearing even though he had been gone for over an hour or so. Nobody would question that this was not the first chronological event concerning the Billy Meier experiences that is reported in the book, but Gary Kinder, perhaps, chose to place it here at the beginning to peak the curiosity of new readers into the case who had likely never heard of Billy Meier before. Near the end of the book, Kinder presents the scientific findings on the mysterious metal specimen that was concluded to have been created as a result of a cold fusion process that is still unknown to earth technology to this day, and then, it disappeared without a trace. Nobody would question that this was not the last chronological event off all events about the case reported by Kinder in the book. Kinder simply chose to report this event last, perhaps, because he believed it was the most amazing piece of evidence of all of the evidence presented so he saved the best for last. Throughout the book, Kinder often reports witness events by sorting the events according to who the witness was, covering each witness and the events that he or she saw before proceeding onward to another witness. Again, this is another sorting method that has nothing to do with the chronological sequence of when these events were actually witnessed. Kinder is not alone in his methods. UFO Contact from the Pleiades Vol. 1 and 2 by Lee and Brit Elders, two individuals who were a part of the original investigative team that reported the findings of the Billy Meier case to the U.S. public, are books that have been entirely sorted according to subject matter and not according to chronological progression. Volume 2 covers findings concerning landing tracks alone before proceeding to findings concerning metal specimens alone before proceeding to findings concerning sound analyses alone, etc. Not only is there no law that forbids an author from using such sorting techniques, but history has shown that many authors have arranged the material in their works according to the needs of the intended audience instead of according to chronological progression of events so that their narrative will be more presentable to their intended audiences.

In the same way that Kinder and Elders did not have to tell the readers that the events recorded in their reports were not sorted in chronological order because the reader could tell just by reading of the events that they were sorted according to other purposes, it can also be seen by comparing Matthew and Mark that Matthew has deviated from the chronological path according to a specific purpose. This purpose, however, is not easily seen by readers who do not have a good understanding of world events revealed in the Bible, some past but some still future. These readers might also not have the ability to see Matthew's time indicators and transition phrases which do not imply forward progression through time at all of the crucial points where Matthew seems to "contradict" the order of events that are presented in Mark and Luke. For this reason, there are endless books and websites that have been created throughout history, and, no doubt, more will continue to be created that are devoted to revealing all of the "chronological contradictions" between Matthew and Mark. Such views ignore Matthew's use of broad transitions and time indicators between events where a past event is reported after an event which occurred at a later time chronologically, and such views refuse to allow Matthew to sort events for other reasons beside chronological progression. Nevertheless, many authors have chosen to use such sorting methods for various reasons when reporting various events on various subjects. Matthew has chosen to do this as well. Once it is shown the specific reason why the events in Matthew chapters 5 through the end of chapter 13 are sorted in the manner that they are, let each person decide for themselves the likelihood of the Talmud of Jmmanuel being the original document that sorted the events in this particular order in the first place....