OIL OF BLESSING!

Seeking Crude Revelations
A Texas oilman is using his Bible as a guide to finding oil in the Holy Land. John Brown, a born-again Christian and founder of Zion Oil & Gas of Dallas, can quote chapter and verse about his latest drilling venture in Israel, where his company has an oil and gas exploration licence covering 38,400 hectares.

"Most blessed of sons be Asher. Let him be favoured by his brothers and let him dip his foot in oil," Brown quotes from Moses's blessing to one of the 12 Tribes of Israel in Deuteronomy 33:24.

Standing next to a 54-metre-high derrick at Kibbutz Maanit in northern Israel, Brown said the passage indicated there is oil lying beneath the biblical territory of the Tribe of Asher, where the agricultural community is located.

Geological surveys and an attempt by an Israeli-based company to find oil at the same site 10 years ago, a venture he said was abandoned for lack of funds, led Brown to pick the spot where new drilling will begin this week. Brown said he raised money for Project Joseph from fellow evangelical Christians in the United States.Seeking Crude Revelations

"From the investment standpoint, they certainly hope to have a return of the money," he said. "But the basis of it is Genesis, chapter 12." In that passage, God promises to shower blessings on those who bless the "great nation" sired by the Hebrew patriarch Abraham.