DALLAS (ABP) — As much of the world continues to wait for signs of peace in Israel, John Brown continues to wait for signs of oil beneath it.
Brown is the chairman and founder of Zion Oil and Gas, Inc., a company searching for significant petroleum deposits in northern Israel. Brown says he believes Scripture points to the discovery of oil in the region.
The latest break for the Dallas-based company came June 10, when it received the Asher-Menashe License from the Israeli petroleum commissioner. The license permits Zion to drill across approximately 78,000 acres of land until June 9, 2010. The newly licensed area sits just north of a 98,100-acre stretch of land on which Zion currently drills.
Brown says he is sure Zion Oil will provide an end to his personal “mission by faith,” although its wells haven't produced any oil yet.
His is not the first company to look for large amounts of oil and gas in Israel — many groups have tried but had little success. The draw for Brown, he says, is to help the nation of Israel lessen its dependence on foreign oil. It currently uses domestic gas deposits from off-shoring drilling but still strongly depends on foreign oil, importing barrels from Middle Eastern neighbors, many of whom are political enemies.
But for all the political tumult, Brown said Zion Oil doesn't concern itself with the politics of any particular country. And he welcomes anybody, including Palestinians, interested in investing in the company.
According to a company Web site, Zion Oil wants to make the people of Israel “politically and economically independent.” The state of Israel is “not only a refuge for Jews but is the answer to the prayers of many generations of the Jewish people,” it says.
Brown also has pledged that if his company finds oil, Israel will receive 12.5 percent of gross profits and two charitable trusts that Brown set up — one in Israel and one in the U.S. — will each earn 3 percent of total revenues.
A biblical treasure map
The idea that the Bible has specific directions for finding oil in Israel is a controversial one. With what he sees as a mandate for drilling in such a sensitive region, Brown is used to criticism. Critics decry the improbability of an oil company claiming to have motivations for drilling beyond that of financial gain, but Brown will not be deterred.
Brown's mission is rooted in a speech he heard soon after he became a Christian. Evangelist James Spillman, now deceased, delivered the sermon, which included many elements in his book The Great Treasure Hunt.
In the presentation, Spillman showed scriptures he said pertained to the discovery of oil in Israel. Then Spillman attempted to connect the scripture to a map of the 12 tribes in Canaan.
Spillman focused on Deuteronomy 33:24 where Moses said, “Let Asher be blessed with children … and let him dip his foot in oil.” Spillman said the tribe of Asher was located in a geographic location shaped like a foot and that the passage referenced to the northern region of the tribe of Manasseh.
Another passage Spillman referenced was Genesis 49:22-26, which mentions “a well,” and “blessings of the deep that crouch beneath” that “shall be on the head of Joseph.” Spillman believed “blessing of the deep” is a reference to oil, and “the head of Joseph” refers to the head-like boundary of ancient Manasseh.
In an interview with Associated Baptist Press, Brown said he was skeptical of Spillman's message at first, but he began to subscribe to it during his first trip to Israel. There, he said, he realized that God wanted him to look for the oil in what was once the northern region of Manasseh. Since then, Brown has never doubted Spillman's message.
“I'll never deny it because that would almost be like saying that Jesus is not my savior,” Brown said. “It's going to happen. There's no doubt in my mind — not because I want it to happen, but because God has ordained it.”
Many biblical scholars have a different interpretation of the Deuteronomy passage. John Hilber, associate professor of Old Testament at Dallas Theological Seminary, said there is no doubt the reference to oil in Deuteronomy 33:24 describes olive oil.
And Hibler's colleague Eugene Merrill, distinguished professor of Old Testament studies, said he hopes Brown finds oil and lots of it. However, he said, it would only be a coincidence and would not change the linguistic interpretation of the passage. He said no one could make shemen, the original Hebrew word referenced in the passage, mean anything but olive oil. The region just below ancient Asher was and is still a land ripe with olive trees, Merrill noted.
Ishwaran Muldliar, assistant professor of Old Testament studies at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, said the phrase “dip his foot in oil,” when used in context, describes fertility and abundance of crops in Israel, not petroleum.
Regarding the Genesis passage, Muldliar said “blessing of the deep,” or tehom in ancient Hebrew, refers to water.
Philip Mandelker distinctly disagrees with Muldiar's interpretation. Zion Oil's executive vice president and secretary, Mandelker has said his general familiarity with biblical literature is his guide for interpreting certain texts. He has written a paper refuting the critics.
Mandelker told ABP that in Hebrew, shemen is a generic term used for many types of oil. He said the etymology of the word is such that it could refer to petroleum.
“I can't say that it definitely means petroleum or rock oil, but I can say that it doesn't definitely mean olive oil,” Mandelker said.
Dallas Seminary's Merrill said Mandelker's use of modern Hebrew does not apply when interpreting the context of the passage. Today's Hebrew-speaking cultures use ancient words to refer to all kinds of modern things, he said.
A long journey
It was a long journey for Brown to the wells in Israel. Four years after Brown became a Christian, with his marriage in tatters, he quit his job in Michigan and moved to Houston to start an oil company.
Brown said what came next were 10 of the hardest years of his life.
“I suffered greatly,” Brown said. “I spent every dollar I had and had no income. Then God showed me what true faith was, and it wasn't what I was taught.”
The breaking point came while Brown was cleaning toilets for $4 an hour at Houston's Metropolitan Baptist Church. Brown said he finally realized there was nothing left for him in Houston, so he decided to accept an offer from his son to work at his concrete company in Michigan. Brown sold his couch for gas money to make the drive back to Michigan.
Brown said what happened next was all God's doing. A newly developed laser screed, or concrete plane, helped M&B Concrete and Construction, Inc., win contracts with major companies like Wal-Mart and K-Mart. In 1995, the company went from earning $60,000 to earning $9.5 million 24 months later.
Despite the new wealth, Brown didn't buy a house for his new wife, Joan, and himself — God was “calling him” to Israel, he said. Instead, with the funding needed to seek out private investors, he flew overseas to start Zion Oil.
A specific vision
Brown founded Zion Oil in 2000, began deepening an exploratory well in 2005, and listed the company on the American Stock Exchange Jan. 3 of this year. Its initial public offering was $12.5 million — not a huge sum of money, considering the expense involved with operating an oil and gas company.
In the short time Zion Oil has been on the market, its share price has declined fairly steadily, from a high of $14.05 per share Jan. 4 to a low of $4.30 per share June 22. But CEO Richard Rinberg said he's not concerned about the falling price.
“I don't care what the short-term price is — I don't even look at it,” Rinberg said. “I know that if we make the right decisions that we will build value into the company for the long-term. And I know that if we have a bit of success that the share price will eventually go up.”
Rinberg said Zion Oil may get a secondary offering from the market when it requires more money. Right now, it is focusing on drilling in the Permian, which is a deep stratum of the Earth that has yielded some of the best deposits of oil and gas worldwide.
“There have been approximately 420 wells drilled in the [Israeli] land north of Jerusalem,” Rinberg said. “The trouble is that around 410 of those wells were not deep enough.”
Rinberg said it's much easier and cheaper to drill a shallow oil well, but he thinks it would have been better for those companies to save their money. The area is practically virgin territory, since only 10 or 11 of those wells were drilled to a level where they even had a chance of success, he said.
Now in its seventh year, Zion Oil and Gas will never drill outside of Israel, Brown said.
“God never called us to any place other than Israel, and that's why we're there,” Brown said.
Time will tell whether he finds oil, but Brown is certain it will happen. And his determination has made quite an impression on his colleagues.
“The fact that John had the character and determination to take all the criticism and see it through to where we are today is incredible,” Rinberg said. “It's unbelievable that anyone could take that sort of battering over the years without giving up.”
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