And if this well is dry? “We’ve learned an incredible amount about the geology, which we’ll put to work in the next well,” he says. Still, he exhibits a wildcatter’s optimism when he says seismic data indicate “this is the place.”

Maybe. But it’s undeniably an odd place. The only disturbance in the late-afternoon calm comes from the baritone rumble of Israeli warplanes circling overhead. It’s an ever-present reminder of where you are: The occupied West Bank is only three miles to the east.

The well here, officially known as Maanit No. 1, has been under way since early 2005. It stands on an 85,000-acre tract licensed from the Israeli government. Brown’s ultimate goal is to extract oil and gas he believes lie buried three miles beneath the ancient territory of Joseph’s firstborn son, Manasseh. This spring, Zion Oil completed its initial public offering on the American Stock Exchange, raising $12.6 million. Shareholders include Christian leaders such as Hal Lindsey, a bestselling evangelical author, as well as prominent Orthodox Jews, among them Michael Freund, a onetime deputy communications director for former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Zion Oil stock, which topped $12 a share on its first day of trading, in January, had slipped to below $6 by July.

To any hardened capitalist, a theologically inspired business plan would seem comically far-fetched. But for Brown, faith and commerce easily coexist. A 67-year-old former manufacturing executive who found Christ in 1981 amid the wreckage of a collapsed marriage and four stints in rehab, Brown decided to devote his life to the search for the Promised Land’s oil. “My love for Israel is fanatical,” he tells me. “When I fell in love with the place, people would say to me, ‘Can’t you just be a normal Christian?’ And I would tell them, ‘I don’t even know what that is anymore.’ ”

For guidance, Brown turns to passages in Genesis and Deuteronomy, which he believes document the precise location of Israel’s oil. At his death, Jacob promises Joseph “the blessings of the deep that lieth under” (Genesis 49:22-26). Moses, on his deathbed, gives his blessing to the tribes of Joseph for “the chief things of the ancient mountains” and “the precious things of lasting hills” (Deuteronomy 33:13-17). Moses then blesses Asher that he may “dip his foot in oil” (Deuteronomy 33:24). And in Moses’ final testament to Israel, he says that God promises that the nation will “suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock.”

Biblical scholars commonly take these passages to mean the olive oil that was bountiful at the time, but since forming Zion Oil in 2000, Brown has found fellow believer-investors who share his interpretation that these are references to petroleum. “Evangelicals will support us because we’re faith-based,” says Zion Oil’s C.E.O., Richard Rinberg, an Orthodox Jew from London.

At first glance, Rinberg, an accountant and former venture capitalist who wears oval glasses and a yarmulke, seems an odd choice to run a Christian-inspired oil enterprise. He possesses a measured, aphoristic manner with none of the brio commonly found in Texas oilmen. But Rinberg, like the six Jews on the company’s board, is here because of Zion Oil’s steadfast support for Israel, a country he immigrated to in 1996 from “Christian Europe,” as he likes to say.

The origins of modern Christian Zionism can be traced to the 1970s, when a new cadre of firebrand evangelical leaders, including the late Jerry Falwell and pastor John Hagee, founder of Christians United for Israel, married religion to conservative political activism. Unflinching commitment to Israel quickly vaulted to the top of Christians’ list of biblically mandated duties. For many Christians, Jews are the biblical “chosen people” who must return to Israel before the Second Coming can occur. And for Jews, especially those who subscribe to messianic Orthodox beliefs, Christians have become crucial—if unlikely—allies, ready to defend Israel at any cost. “I thought it was important to support [Zion Oil] for Israel’s sake,” Freund says. “It’s a well-intentioned effort, and it’s an effort that is grounded in scientific acumen.”

Israel, of course, has earned the unfortunate distinction of being a Middle Eastern country without large-scale oil reserves. Following the nation’s birth, in 1948, and the subsequent war of independence, Western oil companies heeded the Arab boycott and abandoned exploration. Israel’s only substantial commercial onshore discovery to date—despite 480 wells drilled—is a field in Heletz, 35 miles south of Tel Aviv, that over 50 years has produced a mere 18 million barrels, approximately enough to supply the U.S. with oil for one day. (Israel’s annual oil consumption is roughly 80 million barrels.) Recent offshore exploration has proved only slightly more promising.

Skeptics point to this history as evidence of Israel’s dearth of petroleum. Prior to Zion’s well, seven previous biblically inspired attempts had failed. “Nothing has been discovered. And no oilman in his right mind would put money into the business,” says Zvi Alexander, a former director of Israel’s state-owned oil company.