ASHER SHALL DIP HIS FOOT IN OIL ...
PETROLEUM OIL OR SOMETHING ELSE?
Gordon Franz
Everybody loves a treasure hunt! As a young boy, I liked adventures. On occasions, I would play "pirate" by taking a wooden cigar box and putting several rolls of pennies (a lot of money in those days for a boy my age) and other goodies and burying them in the backyard. Then I made a treasure map with various landmarks in the area and put an "X" on the spot where the treasure was buried. I would then proceed to roll up the map and put it in a bottle and seal it with a cork. The next morning I "found" the bottle "floating" in my backyard and set off to find the treasure. I will never forget the excitement of the discovery.
Years
later, while a graduate student in Israel, I worked on an excavation of the
edge of the Hinnom Valley in Jerusalem.
We were excavating caves from the period of the Judean Monarchy (Iron
Age). On the first day we found
some bronze bracelets that had corroded and turned green and some silver earrings
that had turned gray. I asked the
excavator, Gabriel Barkay, if it was possible to find gold. He answered in the affirmative. Since the silver and bronze were
corroded, I asked Goby what gold would look like if I found it. He said, "Don't worry, you'll recognize
it when you see it!" The next day,
I remember carefully brushing away the dirt with a paintbrush to reveal a
beautiful gold earring that was 2,600 years old and looked just like new. I still remember finding my first gold
object as if it was yesterday.
Today
some Christian geologists and oilmen, encouraged by some prophecy teachers, are
looking for greater treasures ... oil ... black gold, with the Bible as their
"treasure map"! They are so
convinced that Israel will soon be awash in fabulous oil wealth that they have
invested millions of dollars of their own money as well as that of well-meaning
Christians. Did the Creator leave
a "treasure map" for modern geologists to find a huge deposit of oil under
Israel? Would Israel then "bless"
all nations by providing a steady flow of reliable oil to the world that is so
dependent on OPEC? Or would the
hungry bear, Russia, invade Israel to take the "spoil" (drop the "sp" and you
have "oil"!, cf. Ezek. 38:13)?
Does the Bible make such fantastic claims and should it be used as a
magical divining rod for the discovery of black gold?
Israel, like the rest of the industrialized world, is dependent on a steady flow of oil from reliable sources. After capturing the Sinai Peninsula in the Six Days War in June of 1967, Israeli petroleum explorers discovered and developed the Alma Oil Fields on the western side of the Sinai Peninsula. These fields provided Israel with a reliable source of oil. However, Israel "lost" the oil fields in the negotiations for peace with Egypt. Part of the Camp David Peace Accord, signed in Washington, DC in 1979, included the return of these oil fields to Egypt in exchange for compensation and a promise of the sale of oil to Israel. Israel not only gave up land, but also a steady supply of oil with the agreement. Today, Israel does not have a steady, reliable supply of oil.
As
of this writing (2004), there has been no major source of oil discovered in Israel. There are a few wells here and there
that pump out small quantities of oil, but nothing like the Persian Gulf
area. Several Christian oilmen
have tried to discover a marketable amount of oil, but to no avail. Some, using the Bible as their treasure
map and guide, have tried to get the faithful to invest in their oil operations. A number of years ago an expose
appeared in the Wall Street Journal
with the headlines, "Prophets and Profits Motivate Evangelicals Hunting for
Israeli Oil" (Getschow 1985:1).
The article describes some of the personalities and operations, and then
goes on to list several states that have prohibited the sale of "penny stock"
because of the suspect nature of these groups and their operations. At one prophecy conference a book by
Rev. Jim Spillman entitled The Great Treasure Hunt (1981) outsold the Bible (Getschow 1985: 16). This article will analyze the verses
used by the prophecy teachers to find petroleum oil. Are they really referring to petroleum oil, or is it
something else?
"... fruitful bough by a well" (Gen. 49:22)
As the patriarch Jacob laid on his deathbed in Egypt, he set out to bless his twelve sons. The account begins with Jacob calling them together to tell them what will befall them "in the last days" (Gen. 49:1). Most prophecy teachers automatically assume the phrase "the last days" are the days we are living in now. Is that the case? The phrase is used 14 times in the Old Testament. The context must determine if it is used of a day still in the future, or of subsequent years from the prediction. A clear example of a future day is Isaiah 2:2 which describes a future day when Jerusalem will be exalted (Varner 1987: 24). The "blessings of Jacob" were fulfilled in the subsequent years in the history of Israel after they entered the Land of Israel and settled it.
With
regards to the blessing of Jacob, Spillman found several "cryptic" references
in this passage. In verse 22,
there is a "well" and in verse 25, "the Almighty ... will bless you (with) ...
blessings of the deep that lies beneath."
He says the key to unlocking this cryptic message is an oilrig
discovering oil deep in the ground (1981: 22-24). Is this speaking about an oil well in the Hill Country of
Ephraim and Manasseh?
Unfortunately
sometimes the prophecy teachers, on their trips to Israel, are so caught up in
the contemporary society that they overlook some of the culture that has gone
on for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. An appreciation of this "time capsule" is overlooked, and an
understanding that would come to the true meaning of the text.
Would
you join me for a short trip to a Palestinian home in the Hill Country of
Samaria (West Bank)? In 1980, I
worked in Jerusalem on the restoration of the pottery from a burial cave found
by Joseph Free at ancient Dothan.
It was like putting a jigsaw puzzle together without even seeing the
picture! At the end of our time
restoring pottery, the project supervisor, Dr. Robert Cooley, took his
volunteers to visit Tel Dothan as well as have lunch at one of the ancient capital
of Israel, Samaria. On the way
home, we stopped at a village near Samaria to visit with relatives of the taxi
driver. By western standards it
was a "primitive" rural setting.
The afternoon was hot and we appreciated the shade of the grape vine
that spread out over the porch. I
noticed the vine that was near a cistern so the family could water it on a
regular basis. The blessing that
Jacob bestowed upon Joseph was ... WATER!
The grape vine (Ps. 80) that was planted by a well of water will shoot
its branches over the wall. The
blessing from heaven is the rains that will come in their proper seasons when
the people are obedient to the Word of God (Deut. 11:9-17). The waters will seep down into the rock
and reach the water table and provide water from the deep, i.e. the well. Jacob's father Isaac had blessed him
with "the dew from heaven" to provide the essentials for life, i.e. grain, oil
and wine (Gen. 27:28).
The
searcher has misinterpreted this so-called cryptic message.
"... to suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock" (Deut. 32:13)
Spillman continues his search for petroleum oil with his "treasure map" in front of him when he turns to the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 32 and the last part of verse 13: "he made him draw honey from the rock, and oil from the flinty rock." He thinks it is absurd to understand the oil as olive oil because it came from crushed olives and honey could not be bee's honey because it comes from beehives. According to him, the honey is "earth" honey, symbolic of petroleum (1981: 36,37). It is true that the word translated "draw" does have the idea of "suck" or "eating to satiety" (Cassuto 1971: 108). But to read, "pump" and find an oilrig is a bit far fetched.
Prophecy
teachers would do well to read the accounts of the 19th-century
explorers to the Holy Land. The
visit by these men opened up a whole new realm of Biblical study. They wrote about their experiences and
the Palestinian folklore and how these illustrated the Biblical passages and
ways. Rev. William Thomson, an
American missionary in the region from 1833 to 1879, traveled extensively and
wrote a three-volume set, The Land and the Book, about his experiences.
On one of his trips he observed a phenomenon that
illustrated Deuteronomy 32:13. "In
the clefts of a precipice overhanging Wady el Kurn swarms of bees made their
home. The people of M'alia,
several years ago, let a man down the face of the rock by ropes. He was entirely protected from the assaults
of the bees, and extracted a large amount of honey; but was so dismayed by
their number that he could not be induced to repeat the exploit. One is reminded by this incident of the
expression concerning Israel in the farewell ode of Moses, Deut. 32:13: ÔHe
made him to suck honey out of the rock.'
And Asaph. In the eighty-first Psalm, thus sings: 'With honey out of the
rock should I have satisfied thee'" (Thomson 1882: 2: 259). Unfortunately Rev. Thomson does not
describe the extraction process, but it is clearly referring to honey produced
by wild bees.
When I was a freshman at Delaware Valley College of
Science and Agriculture in Doylestown, PA, I had an interest in beekeeping so I
joined the apiary society. At one
time I asked the director of the society, a renowned beekeeper himself, if the
beekeepers could "suck" honey out of the rock? His response was, "I strongly suspect that the term draw or
suck simply means remove or extract.
If the term 'suck' is accurate, there is no reason that the honey
gatherers couldn't have inserted hollow tubes into the honey combs and sucks
honey into them" (Personal correspondence from Dr. Robert Berthold, August 31,
1994).
Prof. F. S. Bodenheimer, a noted Israeli biologist,
has stated: "In Israel of Biblical times wild honey hunting only was known,
whereas at the same time real and extensive beekeeping was carried out in Egypt
and Anatolia. In our country the
first documents on beekeeping are found in the Mishnah tractate Ohaloth" (1959: 402).
The writings of the Mishnah are much later than the Biblical
period. The director of Neot
Kedumim, the Biblical Gardens near Tel Aviv, Nogah Hareuveni, states: "Honey is
mentioned several times in the Bible, but never is there an implication that it
is a cultivated product.
Apiculture developed many centuries later ..." (1980: 12). The honey was public property and had
to be gathered (Prov. 25:16; Judges 14:8,9; I Sam. 25,26). Spillman is wrong to two counts. First, the honey referred to is wild
bee's honey that does come from the rocks, and not petroleum. Second, the ancient Israelite farmer
did not cultivate honey in beehives during the Biblical period.
In order to determine what the oil is in verse 13,
one must take a careful look at the context in which it appears. Note all of verses 13 and 14. "... he might eat the produce of the
field; ... honey ... oil ... curds ... milk ... lambs ... rams ... goats ... wheat ...
wine." It is obvious from the
context that the oil has to be olive oil because it is something that one
eats. One does not eat, or drink,
petroleum oil!
The flinty rock refers to the kind of soil that the
olive trees grow in. Rev. Thomson
again observed, "The substratum of this plain [near Beirut] is chalky marl,
abounding in flint, and the sand is merely an intruder blown in from this
desert on our left. The olive is
found, also, in places where there is no rocky basis; but it is in soil such as
this that the trees flourishes best, both in crevices of this flinty marl, and
draws from thence its stores of the rock beneath. I am told the tree languishes, and its berries are small and
sapless" (1882: 3: 34). An alternative
view set forth by Dr. David Eitam, an Israeli archaeologist whose expertise is
olive presses, suggests this might allude to the rock-cut olive presses (1979:
154). The landmark on the
"treasure map" has been misread.
The oil is olive oil, not petroleum oil.
"Asher shall dip his foot in oil" (Deut. 33:24)
Before
Moses died, he blessed the children of Israel. Of Asher he said, "Asher is most blessed of sons; let him be
favored by his brothers, and let him dip his foot in oil. Your sandals shall be iron and bronze;
as your days, so shall you strength be" (Deut. 33:24,25).
This
was the verse that set Andy Sorelle, a Texas oilman and co-owner of Energy
Exploration, Inc., on a new search for oil in Israel. In 1979 a college friend of Sorelle sent him a map of the
territories of the twelve tribes of Israel. As he recounts the event, "There's a passage in Deuteronomy
33.24 where Moses, talking about the blessings of the twelve tribes, said Asher
would dip his foot in oil. Well,
on the map, the leg of Asher started in Lebanon; the heel of the foot was drawn
at Haifa, and the toe at Caesarea.
I suddenly realized that the only area we had not surveyed in Israel was
that between Caesarea and Haifa" (Gafen 1981). On February 12, 1981, Sorelle began his first well in Israel
on the Israeli naval base at Atlit.
At 5,200 feet there was a small amount of oil evident but they continued
to a deeper level. On December 1,
1981 they stopped their operation at 17,296 feet because the oilrig they were
using could not go any deeper. It
took almost a year to get a bigger rig in place; by the beginning of 1983 they
commenced operations again. Due to
problems, they had to stop again at 21,428 feet (Gaverluk and Lindsted 1984:
11,24). I'm sure Mr. Sorelle is
very sincere in his belief that there is a large amount of marketable oil in
the area, but is there a Biblical basis for his belief? Should Christians be investing in this,
or other oil operations based on this verse of the Bible? Two issues need to be addressed. First, what is the oil that is being
referred to? Second, are the
oil rigs in the tribal territory of Asher?
It
is clear from the context that the oil in this passage is olive oil. The Hebrew word "shemen" is used 190
times in Scripture for "generally olive oil whether pure or prepared for
various uses as perfume or ointment" (Austel 1980: 2: 937), and is never used
for petroleum oil. Interestingly,
the early rabbinic writings understand it to mean olive oil as well. In the tractate Menahoth on regulations concerning the meal offering in the
Temple, the rabbis taught, "And let him dip his foot in oil: this refers to the
territory of Asher which flowed with oil like a fountain" (Menahoth 85b).
The context is talking about olive oil.
The
second issue is the location of the oil wells. Sorelle placed his well near the ancient Crusader fortress
of Atlit. Others placed them on
Mount Carmel. Are these oil wells
in Asher's territory? A careful
study of the tribal-city list of Asher (Josh. 19:24-31) suggests
otherwise. While it is true, a
couple of Bible atlases place Asher's territory down in the Sharon Plain, south
of the Carmel range, most place the tribal territory north of Mount Carmel (Carta
Bible Atlas [2002] maps 71 and 72; Zondervan
NIV Atlas of the Bible [1989] pages
99 and 102; The Moody Atlas of Bible Lands [1985] map 49). A very
careful analysis of the tribal list by Zvi Gal, the district archaeologist for
Galilee, in whose jurisdiction "Asher" falls, has demonstrated that the
southern border of Asher's territory was the Kishon River just north of Mount
Carmel (1992: 101-104; 1985: 115-127).
Another careful and detail study of the tribal territory of Asher was
done by Dr. Zecharia Kallai, a professor of Historical Geography of Eretz-Israel
at Hebrew University (1986: 204-224, 427-433). Where Sorelle and others have put their oil wells have been
in Manasseh's tribal-territory, not in Asher's!
The
context of Moses' blessing to Asher is that there will be an abundance of olive
oil in his territory. Has that
been the case? Another 19th-century
explorer who visited the area of Asher, Canon Tristram, a missionary and a
naturalist, recorded his impressions as he traveled over Rosh ha-Niqrah, or the
"Ladder of Tyre" (on the northern border of Israel today), and viewed the Plain
of Acco for the first time. He
described it as "... a green cultivated plain many miles in extent, stubbed with
olive groves, with their grey-blue hue spangling the carpet, and each grove
half concealing a village" (Wilson 1980: 70).
Two
Presbyterian ministers from Scotland took a journey to the Holy Land in
1839. On one trip they recorded
their impressions of an area two hours from Tyre: "... the summits, were
sprinkled over with groves of olives, showing how fertile and how suitable for
the cultivation of the olive this range must have been in former days. This was more remarkable, because we
were now in the tribe of Asher; and the prophetic blessing pronounced upon
Asher, was, 'Let him dip his foot in oil'" (Bonar and McCheyne 1973: 265). How discerning these two students of
the Scripture were!
Only
a few excavations have been conducted in the Israeli part of the tribal
territory of Asher. The part in
Southern Lebanon has not been touched at all, except the ancient city of
Tyre. With a limited amount of
excavations, archaeology could not shed light on the culture and agriculture of
the day ... until recently.
Zvi
Gal excavated a small fortress on a ridge on the slopes of Western Lower
Galilee. This site, called Hurvat Rosh
Zayit (Khirbet Ras el Zeitum in Arabic), is translated "the ruins of the head
of the olives." A discerning
reader will notice that the name of the site has something to do with olives. It also lies less than a mile north of
the Arab village of Kabul, which preserves the name for the site of Biblical
Cabul (Josh. 19:27). When he
excavated the site he discovered a small fortress, 80 feet by 80 feet with a
wall preserved to the height of 10 feet, dating to the time of King
Solomon. The mostly Phoenician
pottery from the excavation dated from the late 10th to mid-9th
century BC. This led the excavator
to suggest that this was one of the twenty cities that Solomon gave to Hiram,
king of Tyre. After examining the
sites, Hiram did not like them and called the place "Cabul-land" (I Kings
9:10-14; Gal 1993a: 39). The most
significant discovery for our study is three large olive presses. Gal states, "These settlers based their
economy largely on the production of olive oil. A large complex of oil presses is now being excavated on the
west side of the site. Within a
well-built structure, we have found at least three presses, and another press
outside the structure has been excavated and reconstructed. These presses, together with the many
rock cut installations found on the surface around the area, make this the
largest known oil-press complex in Galilee" (1993a: 84; 1993b: 128-140). This complex dated to the 8th
century BC and has Israelite features.
It was destroyed by Tiglath-Pileser III in 733/32 BC (Gal 1990:91).
I
believe with further excavations in the region, more olive oil installations
will be uncovered, thus confirming the truth of Moses' blessing on Asher.
The
last part of Moses' blessing says, "Your sandals shall be iron and
bronze." Spillman suggests that
this is referring to oil derricks that are made of iron and brass to prevent
sparks from igniting a fire on the rigs as iron on iron would (1981: 49). Sorelle said this verse did not make
sense until recent times because he believes that "this area will be such a
developed oil field that from a helicopter it will look like he is wearing
shoes of iron and brass" (Webber n.d.: 21). There is a better understanding for this passage.
To
produce olive oil, there are three stages that must be gone through in order to
get olive oil. First, the olives
are crushed. Then, the olive pulp
is pressed to express the liquid that is oil and watery lees, or impurities. Finally, the oil floats to the top and
is separated from the impurities (Frankel 1994: 26). This process could, until recently, still be observed in
some settings in one simple installation.
The farmer would crush the olives with a stone, or treading them while
wearing some kind of shoes (cf. Micah 6:15). The crushed olives were pressed with a stone and the liquids
collected in a vat and the oil skimmed off after separating from the watery
lees (Gal 1993b: 133). A better
explanation for the "sandals of iron and brass" would be that these are the
shoes used by the farmer to crush the olives. This was the method used by the ancient Israelite farmer
before the large stone olive crushers came into use during the Iron Age in
Israel (Gal 1993b: 135).
It
is interesting that Micah 6:15 mentions the "treading of olives." One cannot tread, or crush, olives with
bear feet. Quite possibly the
shoes were of iron and/or brass.
However, Oded Boronski says this phrase can "not be taken literally
since this method is ineffective and the stones might cause harm to the feet of
the treader." The phrase should be
"a poetic expression for oil pressing" (1987:119).
However,
Rafael Frankel, an expert on the olive oil industry in antiquity, has observed,
"Despite the fact that olives were usually crushed by rolling stones over them
on flat surfaces, a special Greek word ... exists for the shoes which were worn
while treading olives. It appears
that olives were trodden in much the same way as grapes, except that the latter
were trodden barefoot" (1994: 78).
The
blessing of Moses to Asher should be understood in light of its ancient Near
Eastern context. Asher was
literally blessed with an abundance of olive oil and he would crush the olives
with special shoes made of iron and/or brass in order to allow the oil to run
out. To imagine an oilrig in this
passage and to get Christians to invest in "penny stock" is not a good
interpretation of this passage.
Jacob's Blessing of Asher (Gen. 49:20)
When Jacob blessed Asher he said, "Bread from Asher shall be rich, and he shall yield royal dainties" (Gen. 49:20). The Hebrew root for the word "rich" is "shemen" which is translated "oil or fatness". Again, the hint is of olive oil. But Jacob goes on to say this food shall be for the royal tables. Has this ever happened? Do people eat or drink petroleum oil at their tables?
Very little history was recorded in the Scriptures
regarding the tribe of Asher. We
do know that each tribe provided food for the royal court one month a year
during the reign of King Solomon (I Kings 4:7,16). I'm sure the people in the palace looked forward to the rich
food from Asher. It must have been
exquisite. Of course, olive oil is
very healthy for a person as well.
Another case where food from Asher landed on the
royal tables was Hiran, king of Tyre.
In exchange for cedars and cypress wood from the Lebanon Mountains,
Solomon promised him food for his household (I Kings 5:9). This food included 20,000 kors of wheat
and 20 kors of pressed oil each year (I Kings 5:11; II Chron. 2:10,15). The closest tribal to Tyre with this
kind of food was Asher.
Just as Moses' blessing on Asher was literally
fulfilled, so Jacob's blessing.
The abundant food did end up on the table of royalty.
It has been demonstrated that the search for petroleum oil with the Bible as a treasure map or a magical divining rod is unwise and fruitless. The serious student of the Scriptures is to properly exegete the passage, i.e. take out from the passage that which is in the text, rather than reading into the text that which is not there, which is what these oilmen and prophecy teachers are doing. The prophecy teachers should heed the words of James, "My brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing we shall receive a stricter judgment" (3:1). Bible teachers are responsible for properly interpreting the Scriptures and will be held accountable by the Lord for their teachings.
The Holy Spirit has several tools at His disposal to help the Bible student properly interpret the Biblical text. We have noted at least four in this paper. First, there are good linguistic tools available that will help the student understand the proper meaning of the words. Invest in a good lexicon or Bible dictionary. Second, there are the 19th century explorers who visited the Holy Land and wrote of their experiences. One should visit the local library and check out these books, they are fascinating reading. Third, one can glean insights into the Scriptures by visiting the contemporary Palestinian culture that still reflects the ancient ways of doing things. This gets harder and harder to find as the Palestinians improve their lot financially. And finally, there have been many archaeological discoveries that have added much light to the Biblical text and the material culture of the days of the Bible.
The
blessings of Jacob and Moses to Asher are referring to olive oil, not petroleum
oil. When I was a field trip
instructor at the Institute of Holy land Studies in Jerusalem, I always enjoyed
the Sharon Plain field trip because we would end up at Mukrakah on Mount
Carmel. This was the place where
Elijah had the encounter with Ahab and the prophets of Baal (I Kings 18). As we journeyed the winding roads on
Mount Carmel to Mukrakah we passed an abandoned oilrig. I would chuckle to myself because the
rig was situated in a huge olive grove, probably owned by the local Druze. If only the oilmen had taken the time
to look around them, they would have seen one of the essential blessings for
daily life in ancient Israel, olive oil, not petroleum oil.
On
one field trip I pointed to the oilrig and expounded the Scriptures of Asher's
blessing and hammered the point that it was olive oil and the rig was in
Manasseh's territory. Later, while
having lunch at Mukrakah, a student sheepishly came up to me and confessed that
he had lost a lot of money investing in those "penny stocks". He said, "I wish I knew then what you
just related to us from the Scriptures.
I would not have lost my money."
I encouraged him to continue searching the Scriptures just like the Bereans
(Acts 17:11).
Should
Christians invest in oil exploration and operations in Israel? If the exploration is based on sound
geological data, by all
means. But if it were based on the
imagination of some prophecy teacher who is not properly interpreting the
Scriptures in their historical-grammatical, geographical and material context,
it would be very unwise. The
Christian should be discerning and invest his or her money elsewhere. After all, we are stewards of the money
that the Lord has entrusted to us.
Aharoni, Y.; Avi-Yonah, M.;
Rainey, A.; Safrai, Z.
2002 The Carta Bible Atlas.
Jerusalem: Carta. Fourth
Edition.
Austel, H.
1980 "Shemen".
Pp. 937, 938 in Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament. Vol.
2. R. Harris, G. Archer, and B.
Waltke, eds. Chicago: Moody.
Bodenheimer, F. S.
1959 A Biologist in Israel.
Jerusalem: Biological Studies.
Bonar, A., and McCheyne, R.
1973 Narrative of a Mission of Inquiry to the Jews from
the Church of Scotland in 1839. Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of
Publications.
Boronski,
O.
1987 Agriculture in Iron Age Israel. Winona
Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns.
Cassuto, U.
1971 The Goddess Anath.
Jerusalem: Magnes.
Eitam, D.
1979 Olive Presses of the Israelite Period. Tel Aviv 6: 146-155.
Frankel, R.
1994 Ancient Oil Mills and Presses in the Land of
Israel. Pp. 19-89 in History
and Technology of Olive Oil in the Holy Land. R. Frankel, S. Avitsur
and E. Ayalon, eds. Arlington, VA
and Tel Aviv, Israel: Olearius Editions and Eretz Israel Museum, Tel Aviv.
Gal, Z.
1985 Cabul, Jiphthah-El and the Boundry Between Asher and
Zebulum in the Light of Archaeological Evidence. Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palastina-Vereins 101: 115-127.
1990 Khirbet Ros Zayit Ð Biblical Cabul: A
Historical-Geographical Case. Biblical
Archaeologist 53/2: 88-97.
1992 Lower Galilee During the Iron Age. Winona
Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns.
1993a Cabul, A
Royal Gift Found. Biblical
Archaeology Review 19/2: 38-44, 84.
1993b An Olive
Oil Press Complex at Hurbat Ros Zayit (Ras ez Zetun) in Lower Galilee. Zeitschrift des Deutschen
Palestina-Vereins 109: 128-140.
Gaverluk, E. and Lindsted,
R.
1984 Oil of Asher.
Oklahoma city, OK: southwest Radio Church.
Gefen, P.
1981 A Matter of Belief. Jerusalem Post.
September 11, 1981.
Getschow, G.
1985
Prophets and Profits Motivate
Evangelicals Hunting for Israeli Oil.
Wall Street Journal. August 22, 1985. Pp. 1,16.
Hareuveni,
N.
1980 Nature in Our Biblical Heritage. Kiryat
Ono, Israel: Neot Kedumim.
Kallai,
Z.
1986 Historical
Geography of the Bible. The Tribal
Territories of Israel. Jerusalem: Magnes.
Spillman,
J.
1981 The Great Treasure Hunt.
Medford, OR: Omega.
Thomson,
W.
1882 The Land and the Book. 3
vols. New York: Harper and
Brothers.
Varner,
W.
1987 Jacob's Dozen.
Bellmawr, NJ: Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry.
Webber,
D.
n.d. Countdown
for Israel. Oklahoma City, OK: Southwest Radio
Church.
Wilson,
C.
1880 Lebanon and the North.
Jerusalem: Ariel. Reprint.