ABSTRACT
Imagine Benjamin Harrison the Blacksmith living near Jerusalem in the Kingdom of Judah in the time of the prophets, 740 B.C., selling plowshares to farmers. Benjamin goes back to the less glamorous and less-well-paid job of providing farmers with plowshares, pails, and pruning hooks. Benjamin becomes a local hero as he and his assistants sweat day and night hammering at his forge; he is paid handsomely by the wealthy prince of the region, who decides the time has come to make use of the family treasure to preserve his position. Consider Benjamin's son Aaron, who starts work in 734 B.C., when Syria and Israel both threaten Judah. Broader concepts of conversion won the day politically with the passage of the first US conversion legislation, the 1990 Conversion Law, which Washington insiders call Division D of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1991. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
