Israel: A Vision of Oil in the Holy Land (Vision by Evangelical)

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8100200/site/newsweek/

Most biblical references to oil allude to the kind you squeeze from an olive. John Brown, an evangelical Christian from Texas, believes the Jewish Bible also talks about petroleum—and points to its precise location in Israel. With a team of oilmen he assembled mainly in Texas and a map drawn from Scriptures, the 65-year-old businessman began drilling in northern Israel last month. He describes the venture as grounded in theology but supported by science. "I believe God deposited the vision of oil for Israel in my heart," Brown tells NEWSWEEK. For decades, speculators have failed to turn up significant deposits in Israel, despite the fact that some of the world's largest oil producers are in the Mideast (though not in neighboring Jordan). But veteran geologists working on the venture, including former Exxon project manager Stacy Allen Cude, say their data seem to conform with Brown's vision.

Raised Roman Catholic, Brown was a tool-company executive in Michigan and an alcoholic when he became a born-again Christian in 1981. A trip to Israel two years later convinced him that he had a mission: to help Israel counter Arab domination in oil markets by developing its own supply. Brown formed Zion Oil in 2000 and bought rights from the Israeli government to explore a 100,000-acre plot in northern Israel. After raising $7 million, mostly from other evangelicals eager to support the Jewish state, he chose a spot near Kibbutz Maanit to begin the 4,500-yard drill based on his reading of the Old Testament.

Brown began with Gen. 49:22-26, where he believes a verse about God's giving Joseph "blessings of heaven above blessings of the deep that couches beneath" refers to the presence of oil in an area of ancient Canaan named after the tribes of Joseph's two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. (The verse also includes reference to a well or spring—evidence, in Brown's mind, of underground treasure. A similar blessing "for the precious things of heaven ... and for the deep that couches beneath" appears in Deut. 33:13-17.) Brown traced the geographic location of the two tribes on a Biblical map he superimposed on a map of modern Israel. A wide area around Maanit corresponded to his interpretation of the texts.

[Sandpiper]

1. Is there a bigger group of Suckers

Than evangelical Christians?

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

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[Behind the Aegis]

7. not a dime!

Unless it in the Occupied Territories, they get none of it!

[Name removed]

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[Behind the Aegis]

12. Sure

A national flag flown inverted is an international sign of distress. This means if a ship was severely damaged, it would raise an inverted flag as a signal to passing ships that it was in distress. Here, at DU, it signifies our country is in distress because of the leadership of the mis-administration. Did that help?

[Name removed]

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[Trajan]

3. What do Geological surveys have to say about this site ? ...

I mean: Oil companies have been pounding away at the dirt for decades all around the world, hoping to hear crude sloshing in the earth below ...

SURELY they already know if oil exists there or not ...

[daleo]

8. I recall reading that most of the land Israel is on is not suitable.

Basically, it's geostratigraphy is all wrong. It wasn't part of an ancient sea bed at at time the necessary sediments for oil would have had to form, and it doesn't have the sort of structures that trap oil anyway. Something like that.

Even if there was any oil in Israel, I doubt that drilling based on biblical verses would find it. This is the same kind of sucker play that is used to round up money for trips to look for Noah's Ark. I imagine some people live pretty well off these ventures funded by the credulous.

[Trajan]

14. That was my basic point ...

IF one were to use biblical verse to seek such oil, and then happen to tap into an existent oil field, then we can assume they would declare the 'prophecies are TRUE !' ......

Myself ? .. as a dedicated atheist, I would rely on a scientifically based investigation which formed an strict empirical basis for establishing, or discounting, the presense of petroleum deposits in a specific region of the globe ... Biblical verse means nothing to me, except supertition ....

[daleo]

15. Agreed, in the unlikely event something was found, it would be held up

As proof of the Bible's inerrancy. When no oil is found, the story will never come out. Just like the countless expeditions to find Noah's Ark - they go in but never come out (at least as far as the news media reports go).

I suppose for people who think the Earth is 6000 years old, oil could be anyplace. Thus, the willingness to be snookered out of their money.

[no_hypocrisy]

4. Uh, whose survey is Brown using? The one that includes Syria, Iran, &

Iraq as part of "biblical" Israel?

[enlightenment]

5. "blessings of the deep"?

Sounds like water to me -- a far more important commodity in desert areas than oil; particularly during the period in which Joseph (presumably) lived.

At least it keeps him busy.

Crimy.

[mitchum]

6. Grifter

[rayofreason]

9. Oil?

Ah...If only Moses had not taken that left turn at Albuquerque...er the Jordan.

[alfredo]

10. That's $7 million they can't use to buy politicians.

[onager]

16. Check out the great Ron Wyatt...

(Standard disclaimer: I'm an atheist and don't have a god in this fight.)

One of the most hilarious Xian hucksters ever was Ron Wyatt, of Wyatt Archeological Research ("WAR"). His story is straight out of the Middle Ages, when con men selling The Genuine Foreskin Of Jesus did a brisk business all over Europe.

In his slick videos and in-church pitches (arranged by his Celebrity Xian Booking Agency--yes, such things exist), Wyatt claimed he had found the following:

--Noah's Ark
--the ashes of Sodom and Gomorrah
--the exact location of the Red Sea crossing by Moses, complete with Egyptian chariot parts resting on the bottom
--the exact location of the post-hole that held the cross on which Jesus was crucified
--the location of Mount Sinai in Saudi Arabia and a fortune in ancient, solid gold Israelite artifacts
--the Ark of the Covenant, buried 20 feet below the crucifixion site. (When the non-existent earthquake occurred on Crucifixion Day, the crack in the earth allowed the blood of Jesus to drip on the Ark, and the blood was still preserved on it. Or something like that.)

Wyatt even roped in so-called mainstream journalists like Barbara Walters and Hugh Downs. At least one "non-fiction" book appeared about Wyatt's discovery of Mount Sinai.

(The site was unfortunately secured by the Saudi Arabian government after all Wyatt's hard work finding it. Which meant he couldn't furnish any proof of it. Don't you hate it when that happens?)

In the end, the people who turned against Wyatt were the Creationists--the financiers of his scams over many years.

A Twue Bewiever tells the whole story here, "A Great Christian Scam:"

http://www.tentmaker.org/Dew/Dew7/D7-AGreatChristianScam.html

[anarchy1999]

17. UGH!

This story is detestable on so many levels.

If Israel or Exxon knew there was oil there, it'd be pumping now.
Trust me, they've both looked.

[Ezlivin]

18. The Lord sayeth "Drill thy pipe to the side and usurp thine enemies."

Next thing you know and the Lord will show 'em how to drill horizontally. I'm sure that Yahweh has provided abundant oil to the south and to the west.

"May thine pipe reachest beneath thy enemies that it might sucketh their strength," Conoco 12:24

[Trajan]

19. Ok ...

now THAT is funny ....

[northzax]

21. and funny enough

I own stock in the Horizontal Bore and Drilling Company of Ely, Nevada! Golden!

[Zerex71]

20. Your first clue the guy's an idiot: Former alcoholic turned born-again.

These people are so omnipresent they're just caricatures. You can't really take them seriously.