Remember the witness physicist Alton Williams who wrote that when he first came into contact with the JWs, that he was going to check the mathematical accuracy concerning the calculation of the year 1914?
Here are the quotations from Dr Williams story:
From: "Why I Believe the Bible, A Nuclear Scientist Tells His Story" http://www.watchtower.org/library/g/2004/1/22a/article_01.htm
I told the Witness that I would be at home for the next Bible discussion.
I wanted to check the mathematical accuracy of what she was going to discuss
about the year 1914.
Nevertheless, I was still skeptical about the teachings of the Witnesses,
and I was looking forward to doing a mathematical check of the Bible
prophecy concerning the year 1914. I thought that this approach would no
doubt intimidate the Witness and, hopefully, help my wife to see the error
of the beliefs taught by the Witnesses.
The following week the Witness returned accompanied by a man who was one
of the elders in the local congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses. The elder
conducted the Bible study. He considered the prophecies found in chapters
4 and 9 of the Bible book of Daniel, concerning the appearance of Jesus
as Messiah and King. My mind was set on finding mathematical inconsistencies
in the presentation, but I found none. On the contrary, I was again
impressed by the logic of the information contained in the Bible
This raises a serious question about what sort of check Dr Williams did concerning the 1914 year calculation. I don't think he did any research at all! If he did, then he would have immediately found the mathematical inconsistency between the years 607 BCE and 587 BCE, and that all secular evidence points to the year 587, and hence the 1914 year calculation would be off by 20 years!
Instead, Dr Alton Williams just accepted everything the elder told him, without question!
I am sure that Dr WIlliams knows about the 587/607 conflict, and for him not to mention it in his story is being dishonest!
Of course, the WHOLE purpose of the article is an attempt by the Watchtower to make good propaganda use of Dr. William's Ph.D. degree. They also prominently state that William's is a "Nuclear Scientist" because that sounds more prestigious than "Optical Scientist," because while Williams did write a dissertation on classical nuclear scattering theory , most of his professional work has been in the optical field, an area of science which has nothing to do with the Bible, and hence Dr WIlliam's statement later in the article that he has found no conflict between the Bible and his scienctific work is vacuous.
I am lead to believe that there might be other reasons Dr Williams became a Jehovahs WItness. Perhaps due to the influence of his wife, I do not know.
--VM44