Carl Olof Jonsson
Carl Olof Jonsson (1937–) was an 'elder' in a Swedish congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses during the 1960s and 1970s.
In 1968, whilst serving a 'pioneer' (full-time evangeliser), he was challenged during a Bible study to prove that the Watch Tower's date for the destruction of Jerusalem (607 BC) was correct [1, p. 7]. Over the next few years, Jonsson conducted extensive research into the Watch Tower's chronology and Biblical prophecies.
In August 1977 Jonsson sent his research to the Watch Tower headquarters in Brooklyn. In response the Watch Tower sent him multiple letters ordering him not to discuss it with other Jehovah's Witnesses:
In September 1978 he met with various representatives of the Watch Tower [1, p. 10]:
September 2, I was summoned to a hearing before two representatives of the Watch Tower Society in Sweden, Rolf Svensson, one of the two district overseers in the country, and Hasse Hulth, a circuit overseer. I was told that they had been commissioned by the Society’s branch office to hold such a hearing because “the brothers” at the Brooklyn headquarters were deeply concerned about my treatise. Once again I was cautioned not to spread the information I had gathered. Rolf Svensson also told me that the Society did not need or want individual Jehovah’s Witnesses to become involved in research of this kind.
It wasn't until February 1980 that he received a response that actually attempted to deal with his questions regarding chronology [1, p. 12]:
Eventually the Watch Tower Society did attempt to refute the evidence against the 607 B.C.E. date, but this was not done until a special representative of the Governing Body in Sweden had written to the Society asking them to provide an answer to the content of the treatise sent to them, telling them that the author was still waiting for a reply. This representative was the coordinator of the Society’s work in Sweden, Bengt Hanson.
Hanson had paid me a visit on December 11, 1979, to discuss the situation that had developed. During our discussion, he was brought to realize that it was the evidence I had presented to the Society against the 607 B.C.E. date—not me, my motives or attitude—that was the real issue. If the evidence against the 607 B.C.E. date was valid, this was a problem that should be of equal concern to every Witness in the organization. Under such circumstances, my personal attitude and motives were as irrelevant as those of other Witnesses.
As a result of this, early in 1980, Hanson wrote a letter to the Governing Body explaining the situation, telling them that I was still waiting for a reply to the evidence I had brought against their chronology. And so, at long last, nearly three years after my sending them the research material, in a letter dated February 28, 1980, an attempt was made to tackle the question instead of the questioner.
The argumentation presented, however, turned out to be largely a repetition of earlier arguments found in various places in the Watch Tower Society’s literature...
On June 9, 1982, Jonsson was 'disfellowshipped' (excommunicated). Shortly after in 1983 he published his research and experience under the title The Gentile Times Reconsidered [1].
References
[1] “The Gentile Times Reconsidered.” Commentary Press, Atlanta, 2004, [Online]. Available: https://archive.org/details/the-gentile-times-reconsidered.