Today, most 18 year olds could walk into just about any bank and be entrusted with thousands of dollars of credit. We as Americans take debt and its accompanying, exorbitant interest for granted. But this wasn’t always the case. Old Testament Israel, the ancient philosophers, the early church, medieval societies, and the reformers all enforced strict prohibitions on any usury, or at the very least, capped interest rates and prohibited their use to exploit the poor. What changed and why?