Max Hatton

Max Hatton was a member of Jehovah's Witnesses, baptised in West Australia in 1959 [1].

Sometime during the early 1960s he encountered a Seventh-day Adventist who questioned the Watch Tower's chronology surrounding the 'Gentile times' prophecy. Subsequently, he began an in depth study of the chronology in order to defend his beliefs, including writing to the Watch Tower:

I also wrote to the Watch Tower headquarters in Brooklyn, New York, on several occasions but received no help whatsoever. On one occasion I was informed that they were too busy to spend the time that would be necessary to study for answers to my questions. This response obviously shocked me for I had been convinced that they were the real experts and were completely conversant with the subject of chronology. On another occasion they just counselled me to give less attention to chronology and rely on the signs they said confirmed their 1914 date.

In 1964, he attended the Australian Institute of Archaeology Annual Lecture Series, which included a presentation on the Adad-Guppi Stele. At this point he decided that Watch Tower's claims were unsupported by the evidence, and submitted a resignation letter on August 16, 1964.

Shortly later in 1965, he distributed his research under the title 1914, The Touchstone of the Watchtower, criticising the chronology of the Watch Tower [2]. The Watch Tower society did not like this, and he was sent a letter notifying him that he had been 'disfellowshipped' (excommunicated).

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