I don’t see how one can say, as Eric Mechoulan does in “What is the Meaning of Jewish History?,” that “the very idea of history was a Jewish invention.” What Jews invented was the idea that history has a divine purpose. Apart from Israel’s relationship to God, and God’s relationship to other peoples as a means of punishing or rewarding Israel, the history of anyone or anything never interested the authors of the Bible or the rabbis in the least.